#and after like a week or two ill probably boost it to once a day if my skin can take it without getting extra dry or anything

[elibeeline]

Gamers im trying that fancy retanol to handle these surface level acne marks? Will update 🫡

[littleelephanty]

ngl but I´m a little too much obsessed with your family stories. Would be awesome to read some more of the taboo stuff.

x Lore

Hey Lore :) Sure!

It had always been the case that Marjorie had to share the room in the summer house with her cousin Ian. That was just the way it was when you were the only girl in the family and there weren't enough bedrooms for everyone. That had never really been a problem either, because when they were younger all the cousins had slept in one bedroom on the mattresses that had been laid on the floor. It was like a huge sleepover party! Later, after the full, exciting days, they also appreciated the peace and quiet and retreated to the bedrooms with the comfy beds. At some point, Marjorie's parents divorced and she preferred to go to her father's house in the summer rather than travelling to the summer house with her mother. But now they were all grown up and actually living their own lives, but her grandparents were getting older and because her grandfather had been diagnosed with a serious illness, all his grandchildren got together once again and spent what was probably his last summer with him at the summer house. The house was full and so Marjorie had to share a room with Ian again. But now they had both gone through puberty and things were no longer as carefree and innocent as they had been years before. They changed awkwardly in the bathroom and wore long pyjamas. They fussed about asking whether the light could be switched off and whether they wouldn't disturb the other when they got up early in the morning to go jogging. The familiarity from before was gone. But over the course of the first week, they started to talk a bit in the evenings. Just small conversations about university or what they thought of the day's activities and excursions. After her grandfather had a boost, they also talked about that and their own finiteness. By the second week, they were used to talking for an hour or two after the lights had been switched off. In the dark, it was much easier to talk about things they hadn't told anyone yet. At first, Marjorie talked about her parents' divorce and how sad it sometimes made her to come home to her mum and see her lonely while her dad had three kids with a new, younger wife, and Ian talked about how much he hated it when he got lower than A grades.

He said that he couldn't sleep then and hated himself for being such a failure, while all his friends were also happy to get a C or to have passed at all. Ian then admitted that although he was over his first girlfriend and his first heartbreak, he didn't dare to fall in love again for fear of having his heart broken again. And then Marjorie finally said it for the very first time. She told him that she had never had sex before and that she had never kissed anyone, but that she would like to but had missed the moment when everyone was in the trial and error phase and therefore rejected all the boys who were interested in her. Ian was surprised. Marjorie was a pretty girl. Of course she was also kind of cool, he had known her all his life and knew how nimbly she had climbed the highest trees barefoot, while he had only dared to climb the lowest branch. She had played football wildly and screamed like a madwoman. So loud and powerful. In the past, she might have been called a tomboy. She had worn her older brothers‘ and cousins’ clothes and had short hair. Now she wore her hair longer and wore women's clothes. Her body was womanly. She was attractive, though more reserved. She sighed heavily. ‘How I wish I could just make out with a cute boy like you!’ He said nothing.

The next morning, Marjorie's mum asked her if Ian and she were getting on well, otherwise Marjorie could of course go to her mum's room, but Marjorie assured her that everything was fine. That evening, Ian asked: ‘Did you mean it?’ ‘What?’ asked Marjorie, who had already made herself comfortable in her bed. ‘That you'd like to make out with me?’ asked Ian, who had also just returned from the bathroom in his pyjamas. ‘What? I never said or meant that! I meant a cute boy who isn't related to me.’ ‘But I'm just your cousin, it would be allowed, you know?’ ‘But frowned upon!’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘I'm just saying. I've already had a girlfriend and you could practise with me innocently so that you dare to date a boy,’ he suggested timidly. She was shocked and turned to the wall. She didn't want to talk to him anymore today. The next day, she watched him relaxing in the pool with the others. He was also attractive, he had been awarded a sports scholarship for university, so of course he had to be in shape. Not in the surfer boy way either, but much more inconspicuously. Yes, she meant a cute boy like him. That was her type. Marjorie quickly shook her head and went inside. She spent a little time with her grandfather. ‘I'm proud of you, you still have principles and you're not giving yourself away to just any bloke!’

The aunt, who was also in the room, laughed. ‘What?’ he asked his daughter. ‘But Dad, haven't you got it yet? Marjorie is a lesbian!’ ‘Uhm,’ said Marjorie. ‘I'm not a lesbian.’ They both looked at her sceptically. ‘I mean, sorry, I didn't mean to embarrass you, I didn't realise you weren't out!’ ‘I'm not a lesbian,’ Marjorie repeated. ‘But you always used to have short hair!’ Marjorie frowned. ‘That's not a clear sign of a lesbian,’ she said and laughed at her aunt's naivety. Marjorie was not homosexual, but her world view was certainly characterised by open and tolerant values. ‘But you're still a virgin, aren't you?’ her aunt asked. She blushed and ran into her room. Ian was standing there, naked. ‘I didn't realise you were here!’ they both exclaimed at the same time, startled. ‘I was just changing! I was wearing wet swimming costumes and wanted to go into town for a quick trip,’ Ian explained quickly. ‘I'm already leaving!’ said Marjorie. ‘Oh rubbish no, just close the door!’ Marjorie closed the door and stared at her cousin, who was now hiding his nakedness behind a towel. ‘Well, you don't have to stare at me either,’ he laughed. She nodded and sat down on her bed. ‘What's wrong?’ Ian asked as soon as he was wearing trousers and hesitantly sat down next to her.

‘well, I was just mistaken for a lesbian because I've never had a boyfriend.’ ‘You're just waiting for the right one,’ he said. She nodded. ‘But I don't dare because I'm so inexperienced.’ She laid her head sadly on his shoulder and he patted her gently. She sat up again and looked at him. There was that crackling in the air that comes just before the first kiss between two people. In fact, Marjorie leaned forward and Ian allowed his cousin to kiss him. However, he stood up as soon as the kiss was over. ‘I don't want to pressure you into anything,’ he said. She was confused. ‘Don't get me wrong, the kiss was very good for a beginner. But I don't want to be taken advantage of either. If that's what you really want, to gain experience, then don't play with me, demand it. Then I'll show you everything.’ She hesitated and he looked down at her. ‘Think about it until tonight. When you come out of the bathroom and lie down in my bed, you're mine for the rest of the summer. If you go to your own bed, I'll leave you alone, but you won't make any more advances in my direction either.’ He smiled and stroked his cousin's cheek with his index finger, who had fallen silent in surprise. He left the room. That was Ian for you. He liked people who were straightforward. No games, nothing in between. He was straightforward and clear. And that was what Marjorie needed from him.

Of course, she didn't want to commit herself and would rather have the opportunity to accuse him of misbehaving than to agree. But Ian was right. If you want something, you have to stand by it. And that's what Marjorie did that evening. She came out of the bathroom and found Ian already lying in bed. She pushed the latch on the door and crawled into bed with him. He grinned. ‘I thought my little cousin might want to learn a thing or two from me.’ ‘Don't say it like that,’ she said, grimacing. He laughed. Then he pulled her close. ‘Whenever you're in my bed, I'm the boss. I take care of you. But you have to trust me.’ He felt warm against her cheek and smelled wonderfully like a man. He gave her a little kiss on the forehead that made her shiver. Then he pulled her a little higher and his lips found hers again.

After that night, it was hard to pretend that there was nothing between them. He had touched her everywhere, she had moaned softly in his ear, it had felt so good. And now she had to look at the same fingers that had made those noises yesterday, passing the butter over to her grandmother. She had to watch that mouth as it tasted a crusty roll, whereas yesterday it had tasted her lips. His eyes looked innocently at anyone who said anything at the breakfast table, but yesterday those eyes had seen Marjorie's naked body. She blushed and could hardly concentrate on the conversation. The next night he taught her how to suck a penis in such a way that the man lost his mind. Using these little tricks on him gave Marjorie quite a bit of pleasure herself. But the next morning it seemed to be Ian who couldn't take his eyes off her lips that had made him twitch with lust just a few hours earlier. They made out for a few nights, but eventually the time came and they actually had sex. His penis was warm, big and felt so damn right inside her that she dug her fingernails so deep into his back that the aunts asked him about the marks the next morning by the pool: ‘Do you have mosquitoes in the room or why is your back scratched up?’ ‘Seems like it,’ was all he said. She grinned. ‘He's your cousin,’ one of the aunts said to her later as she was taking out the rubbish and bumped into her aunt. ‘I know,’ Marjorie said simply. ‘That means some things aren't allowed to go on between you two.’ Marjorie shrugged her shoulders and asked innocently, ‘What kind of things?’ ‘You know.’ She shook her head. ‘It can't get physical, you know?’ her aunt fussed. ‘And between us?’ asked Marjorie. ‘Between you and me? You know I'm a lesbian because I wore my hair short as a child.’ This time it was her aunt who shook her head: ‘Of course, you're not a lesbian and you're not fucking your cousin. But I can see the way he looks at you. He was always such a good boy. Maybe you should move in with your mum.’ Marjorie laughed and asked: ‘Wouldn't that be much worse - if the lesbian fucked her mum?’ The aunt said nothing more. The self-confidence was new. And Marjorie was already looking forward to the next night. Ian was her drug. And today she wasn't wearing any panties so that he could touch her bare arse under her summer dress throughout the day. And no matter what her aunt said, it was wrong to fuck her cousin, but it felt so right. And she would do it again.

[honeyabyss]

When Mc gets sick

Lucifer:

will scold the hell out of you

"didn't I tell you to take care of yourself?"

you can have only a slight cold and he will insist on you staying in bed for the rest of the week

humans are weak and die easily, and you're apparently stupid on top of that for getting sick even after his warning

will constantly sigh, scold and act like it's a huge nuisance taking care of you

says he doesn't care

actually cares a lot

keeps his brothers away from you, so you have peace and silence to recover

if your condition worsens he will grow panicked, he doesn't want to lose you!

will take you to a human world doctor so you can get the right treatment

after your recovery, he will be so paranoid and overprotective for the first few weeks, will wrap you up in blankets, constantly makes sure you drink and eat enough, will put his coat over your shoulders if he even just gets the idea you might find it cold

Mammon:

"that's your own fault!"

someone like the great Mammon would never get sick

leaves the room only to come back half an hour later panting and packed with bags full of medicine and other stuff you might need

he didn't know what you need so he got one of all

there isn't the right thing among it? oh well no worries he'll get you whatever you say

after all he cares a lot for his human, even though he denies it

he will keep you company and try to distract you from your pain through telling you about his new money making schemes, or try to get you to laugh through telling you about stories where he failed and received Lucifers punishment

he doesn't like that you  have to go through this so he tries to help you however he can

if you'll ask for some quiet time, he will struggle, it's not like he doesn't want you to have some rest to recover, it's just he is so worried and confused, he feels more at ease when you talk to him or laugh about his stories, if you answer that is prove you're still alive and breathing

once you've recovered everything goes back to normal, Mammon will be confident in his ability to take care of you...for now that is, it's probably diffrent once you're actually sick again

Leviathan:

stupid normie! An otaku like him doesn't get sick, because he never leaves his room and avoids interactions with others

he, of course, secretly cares though

"Mc? I brought you these anime that we can watch together to pass the time"

"oh and in case you want to rather read something in silence, I brought you some manga recommendations, but please don't sneeze all over them..."

does the online RAD lessons with you as he stays at home almost everyday anyway, so he can show you how they work and help you

he will awkwardly sit next to you on the bed, trying to keep a small distance between the two of you A) because he is shy and nervous and B) because he can't get sick, he would miss all his in-game raids

will ask if you want to play games as well, but soon realizes that you two won't be making much progress with your current reaction time, so he chooses an easy and fun game for you

he wouldn't admit it but he might have set the game to the easiest settings and he himself plays slower for you

he is actually kind of disappointed when you recover so quick, he will miss you now that you visit RAD again instead of doing the online lessons with him, but he is glad you're feeling better again...maybe you could stay home more often with him though?

Satan:

he will buy and read every single human medicine book so he can find the best solution to your illness

will obviously read them in your room, because he can't leave you alone in this state

makes sure to keep you warm and makes you herbal tea depending on your symptoms

will skip school in favour for your well-being, especially keeps this behaviour up when Lucifer gets mad about it

will yell at everyone who dares to try and enter your room while your still sick, how dare they disturb your rest

will get embarassed about yelling and actually being the disturbance to you himself, will apologize and leave your room to keep reading somewhere else, still checks up on you occasionally and brings you light novels to read so you don't get bored

will come in stumbling into your room with the perfect medicine to cure you, only to find that you're already feeling better

gets embarassed yet again, but says it was worth reading all these books as he can now react faster the next time you get sick

will keep a check on your health and make sure you're always taking care of yourself

Asmodeus:

keep your snotty face away from him, but also come cuddle

he is very conflicted, because getting sick is not good for his skin, but he also wants to make you feel better with his hugs

will wear a mask so he doesn't get infected that easily

Asmo doesn't know much about medicine but he knows that certain herbs are good for your health, so he'll make you a nice herbal bath to boost your healing

also will take over your skin care routine and adjust it while your sick so your skin doesn't get worse, says he will only buy a refreshing face mask, comes back with more stuff though... I mean what did you expect from him?

will stay in bed with you and constantly cuddle so you don't feel lonely

he will most definetly whine if you ask him for some space or alone time, but does comply...fo at most half an hour, look this is hard on him too! His darling is sick and he can't do anything but be a moral support for you

if you thought he stops to cling to you once you've recovered, then you're mistaken, he will give you so many kisses and hugs having missed being able to do that

Beelzebub:

"Will food make you feel better?"

"You don't feel like eating?"

the poor boy is so confused, you're going to die if you don't eat! He will ask Satan what humans need when they're sick

will make yoou the perfect meal based on your symptoms, he'll even hold back on eating from it

he has a huge smile on his face while he watches you eat what he prepared, he is so proud that you like what he made you

eat as much as you can, Beel will eat everything you can't, all this boy wants for you to eat at least a bit so you have enough strength to recover

you get cold? cuddle time!

there is no way Beel will leave your side for as long as you're sick, he'll hold you close and share all his warmth and food with you

is so happy when you're better again. Will celebrate it with inviting you to a restaurant

Belphegor:

being sick is like being sleepy right?

he will just go back to sleep next to you as if nothing happend

wakes up because of your coughs and pretends to be annoyed, but is actually worried

will leave the comfort of the bed to get you some medicine, before wrapping you up into a blanket burrito and cuddling into you

don't expect to be getting up any time soon, he wants to sleep...you better not have to go to the bathroom

sleeping is best medicine but Belphie takes this a bit to literally, you two will almost only sleep

once you're better he will still want to sleep using you as a pillow, good luck getting out of that situation

Diavolo:

"Are you dying Mc?"

"Barbatos turn back the time before Mc got sick! -Wait you're going to be okay?"

Don't scare him like that! He is always ready to save you from death!

He will let you live at the castle for the time being and appoints the best doctor to take care of you, because he still isn't completly convinced you're going to make it

Does his work in your room, so he can keep a check on you

will not do much work much to Barbatos dismay, Dia is just so worried about you and will constantly ask if you need anything

his breaks consist of hugging you gently and drinking some tea with you

he will literally cry and almost crush you in his hug, when you're finally healthy again. This man was so anxious about losing you, even thugh he could've commanded Barb to just turn back time

Barbatos:

*smiles*

he knew you were going to get sick, so he's prepared

knocks on your door in the house of lamentation, before you're even able to tell anyone that you're sick

made himself a very strict schedule for everything so he can help you and still attend to his duties as a butler

gives the brothers various tasks so they can indivdually take care of you in the time he isn't able to be there for you

he will get back to you in the evening after having finished all his work for the day

will make you a light dinner and sit next to your bed

stays with you until you fall asleep stroking you hair and holding one of your hands, when you wake up the next morning Barb await you with a small breakfast, if he stayed over night or left and came back in the morning will stay a secret of his

is relieved and at the same time sad when you've recovered, will miss coming over and seeing you, maybe you can return the favor and visit him at the castle sometimes...

Solomon:

is a human so he knows what to do...

but magic is quicker!

he tries to heal you with a spell, but he just end up making it worse

"Oh no Mc I'm so sorry! Let me make it up by taking care of you!"

undefined matter soup a la Solomon, "eat this", he said, "You'll feel better", he said ...you don't feel better...

the brothers will get so angry and throw him out of the house, he is only allowed to come back once you've recovered, actually scratch that he's not setting foot anywhere near you again if it were for the demons

but Solomon finds his way into your room through your window...will stay over the night, cuddling you and constantly apologizing

will laugh about the whole ordeal once you've recovered

Simeon:

he is so calm, like yeah? Humans get sick, but they recover soon if taking care of correctly

Simeon is just the best!

he knows the right food to make for you, will give you the best medicine and make sure you're taking it at the right time

will make sure you're always comfortable

bored?  "let me get you a book!"

tired?  "let me fluff your pillow so you can sleep better!"

he will sit next to you the whole time looking so calm and confident

he will pray for you to get better quick so you don't have to suffer too long

promises you to take care of you again if you get sick in the future, this man just wants to be there for you

Luke:

"Are you dying Mc?" Version 2.0

no seriously are you? Will you become an  angel? We can live together in the celestial realm and bake desserts for Micheal!

Mc why are you so angry? No you misunderstood I don't actually want you to die!

Is so sorry he couldn't protect you from getting sick, he will feel so helpless

Simeon and you will cheer him up and tell him there wasn't anything he could have done to prevent it

Luke will bake you light desserts so you can eat some sweets while recovering

will visit you daily with Simeon after school and tell you about the day

crushes you in a big hug once you're healthy again

[anotherimaginethatblog]

Family Gatherings

Meet the parents.

Pairing: Kenny x reader

Warnings: small mention of something cheeky ... maybe more in part 2

Summary: you finally make the trip to meet Kenny’s family.

so i finally found the time to sit and write a little and this ended up being a lil longer than expected bit ive enjoyed writing this one, probably be a part two (possibly 3) so let me know what you think x 

hope you like it 

You were nervous, you had been since the day Kenny booked your airline ticket to Winnipeg so you could finally meet his family. You had heard all the stories about them, and they sounded lovely, but you were still, naturally nervous. Constant thoughts had flown through your head since the day you packed, what if they didn’t like you? Didn’t approve of you? you took another sip of your drink hoping the soothing flavour would relax you.

An hour later the pilot informed the plane full of weary passengers that the flight would be making its late arrival at the airport shortly, you began to gather your things up and pack them back into your designer backpack Kenny had bought you as a gift but couldn’t help thinking you’d made a mistake by bringing it, what if they thought you were showing off? Too gaudy? “breathe” you told yourself “it’ll be fine, they’ll love you” you said trying to boost your self-confidence.

“sorry mam, but would you mind stowing your bag? Were going to land soon that’s all” asked the kind stewardess who had given you that extra miniature off the drinks trolly earlier, probably due to the anxiety she saw on your face after striking up a conversation about why you’d be visiting Winnipeg in November.

“sure, sorry” you smiled back.

 Finally, After the stress of the queue at passport control, your bag coming off the plane last and trying to find your way out of the baggage hall altogether you were here. You grabbed your phone out of your bag to see a text from Kenny already, “waiting in the arrivals hall, ring me when your out” it read. You dialled his number and he picked up immediately, so quick he must have been waiting for you thought. “finally, you here yet?” he laughed.

“yeah, just got through, been a nightmare” you replied, “where you at?” you asked him.

“just at the coffee shop with my dad, well wait here for you. You’ll see it if you walk to the end”.

“okay babes see you in a sec” you replied before hanging up, instantly feeling nervous. His dad. You were going to meet his dad for the first time in an airport after hours of travel. Fantastic.

You saw Kenny straight away, those two-tone curls where recognisable anywhere. He looked relaxed and rested whilst he sat chatting to his dad unbeknown to you about how nervous he was for you to see his home and family. “what if she thinks I’m a huge loser once she’s seen I’m just a weird kid from Canada?” he asked his dad. His anxiety spiking in anticipation.

“she won’t, she sounds a great girl and clearly likes you so stop worrying.” His dad replied smiling at his son.

So deep in conversation they hadn’t seen you approach, “hey ken” you said, smiling from ear to ear at finally being reunited.

“babe, you look amazing, I missed you so much” said Kenny, words spilling out with a huge smile in his face as he looked you up and down, clearly appreciating the effort you had made. “this is my dad, (y/n)” he said stepping to the side to introduce the older gentleman who looked very much like his son.

“hi, I’m (y/n), I’m so happy to finally meet you. I’ve heard so much about you Kenny always talks about you” you replied any nerves melting away at how normal and nice he seemed, internally laughing at why you were so nervous in the first place.

“nice to meet you too, we’ve heard everything about you I’m so glad you managed to make it out. Big freeze on the way” he said. “let’s get home, before it’s too dark and your mother kills us for being late.” He laughed.

Kenny grabbed your bags and you both followed to the car as soon as you left the terminal you regretted your choice of coat. The leather jacket though warm was not enough to keep your heat against the cold Canadian weather “I told you to get a good coat (y/n)” said Kenny shaking his head at you.

“okay, I just thought you where exaggerating” you replied shivering.

“your so cute, its not far to walk” he said.

After realising Kenny’s definition of short walk was not the same as yours you reached the car and were incredibly grateful when his dad opened it for you so you could jump straight in. “thankyou” you told him while he cranked the heat up for you.

“no problem, its not a far drive either so well have you home and warm in a little while” he told you smiling at your lack of appreciation for the Canada winters.

 After a 40-minute drive you were at Kenny’s childhood home, it was just what you had imagined after hearing all of the stories from him about living in the suburbs as a kid. It was your classic suburban home with a lawn out front and a porch to sit on. It was actually really cute, you where excited to see inside. Kenny’s dad got out and left you two to make your way in, all of a sudden you where back to the nervous girl on the plane with the millions of questions about whether you where enough flooding your brain. All of a sudden Kenny planted his lips on yours and you snapped out of whatever you where thinking of immediately “they’re gonna love you, because I love you” he said. It was like he could read your mind and you kissed him back, you’d missed him so much in the time you’d been apart and if it wasn’t for being in his dads car outside his parents house you’d have climbed over and had him right there in the car. The moment was perfect for it … but the location was severely lacking. “we better get in the house before my mom sends my dad back out to get us” he smirked pulling away, clearly thinking the same thoughts you had been a few minutes prior.

“okay” you smiled back “lets go”.

 Once inside the house you felt relaxed all of a sudden, it felt like a home and all the stress you had had about the visit faded away. You took your coat and shoes off and followed Kenny into the kitchen where a beautiful blonde lady stood at the counter. “Tyson, and this must be (y/n). your so pretty” she said patting her son on the shoulder in an approving manor.

“thanks mom, I’m glas you two finally get to spend some time together. It’ll be nice to have the family all under one roof again.” He replied, with his mum giving you the once over.

“I’m so glad you’ve finally brought us a girl home, I thought you’d never setlle down to be honest” she said teasing her only son.

“mom” he said laughing back “I’m gonna take our stuff up, my room yeah?” he asked

“mhmm, and (y/n) across the hall” she said trying to gauge her sons reaction.

“your joking, I’m a grown man mom” said Kenny laughing trying to cover for the fact he’d been wanting to get you into bed since he’d seen you in the airport in those skin tight pants he loved so much.

“Its fine” you interjected not wanting to upset Kenny’s mum and to stop a fight over a room before you’d even settled in. “its fine, I totally respect that. We respect that don’t we ken” you said looking at him with pleading eyes to drop it.

“fine, its fine” he said turning to walk upstairs leaving His mum feeling guilty, though she would never admit it. Honestly she had no problem with the two of you sharing a room but who wants to hear the inevitable through thin walls on the first weekend of meeting your sons possible future wife.

“thankyou” she mouthed quietly to you smiling at how gracious and kind you had been at trying to avoid an awkward situation on your first meeting. You smiled back and followed Kenny upstairs to your room for the next few days. It was a gorgeous guest room, you dropped your bags off and crossed the hall to see Kenny in his childhood room. It was painted blue and like you expected there where wrestling and hockey pictures and posters all over the walls. “cute,” you said smiling at him

“its changed a little but not much” he said smiling back “my mom painted but put all my pictures back up” he laughed.

“that’s sweet, she probably wanted it to be the same for when you got back” you said.

“not that I ever got the chance much” Kenny sadly replied.

“she understood why though” you mentioned reassuringly with your arm on his back.

“you know, I never thought id get a hot girl in my room” he said laughing

“you still wont” you said getting up to go downstairs “come on lets go hang out” you laughed Kenny following reluctantly.

 you spent the rest of the evening chilling out in the kitchen, drinking wine with his mum while him and his dad watched sports on tv. “I’m glad I got to meet you” his mum said to you smiling

“me too, I’m so glad to finally meet everyone and happy for Kenny to spend some family time at home, he’s always on the road I’ve told him he needs to make more of an effort” his mum appreciating your words.

“yeah but he’s busy doing what he loves, I would never tear him away from that” she said laughing at him and his dad.

A few hours later it was time to head to bed, his mum and dad had called it a night a few hours earlier but you and Kenny had stayed up to chill and watch a little tv together. “I’m heading up babe” you said pecking him on the cheek

“okay babe me too then” he said getting up to turn everything off  before following you upstairs

You waited for him at the top of the stairs, pulling him into a hug “guess ill see you in the morning” you teased

“unless you wanna sneak over in a little bit” he teased

“Kenny … no, I don’t want to disrespect your mom” you said back shrugging.

“okay okay, can I at least get a hand job in the bathroom” he laughed  

“goodnight Kenny” you said turning to walk away.

After completing your evening routine you settled down for the night, it was hard to drift off knowing your man was just over the hall, who you had been dying to touch since before the last time you had said goodbye all those weeks ago. Eventually your eyes began to feel heavy and just as you where settling in for the night your phone began to buzz, straight away you knew who it was. – im lonely- it read, you rolled your eyes, it was gonna be along night.

[thebeautyoffanfics]

se!saeran x gn!reader

a/n: I’m really really sorry for taking so long on requests,,, I’m working on them slowly, but I’m in a sort of weird mental state, so I wrote this mainly for comfort. Thanks for understanding ^^

Pfff, as i’m writing this, my internet has cut like 6 times- honestly i’m just trying to write comfortttttt

warnings: negative thoughts/feelings

word count: 1,869

Your stomach ached, as you wrapped your arms around your torso. So many thoughts flooded your head that it was beginning to make you feel physically ill. Your brain was screaming at you- things you should be doing, things you regretted doing, how lazy you were being, how tired you felt, how overwhelming every little feeling, sound, light, and texture was to your senses. Yet, all you could do was sit there. You wanted to cry, but, despite everything you felt, you were… numb. Where was the point in crying? It was best to accept everything as it was.

Though you told yourself it was best to accept such a defeat, there was a part of you that was well aware that you were close to some sort of breaking point. All day was spent doing things- all day for several weeks now, you spent your time working. Working, worrying, running errands. Still, every day seemed to bring another thing to do- another problem- more drama, none of which you could control. Everything was out of your control.

You nearly jumped at hearing your phone ring. Grabbing it, you were half-ready to give some sort of curt answer, before realizing that it was just Saeran. Holding the phone to your ear, you gave the most cheerful answer you could.

“Hello?”

“Hey, (Y/N)... I was just… wondering how you were.”

Of course, you weren’t doing your best. Knowing that, but also knowing that Saeran probably couldn’t afford to bother himself with your problems, you told him “I’m pretty good. How about you?”

“I’m fine… my stupid brother went into town, so I was thinking about walking to your place. Not like I… really feel like seeing you in particular, I’m just….”

“It’s alright. You don’t need an excuse to come visit me, you know? I’m decent, and I’ve probably got ice cream in the fridge.”

Saeran paused on the other line, and you could vaguely hear the sound of boots zipping up. “Right then. See you in a few.”

“Okay. Love you, see you in a few.”

“............” He whispered, despite the fact that no one was in his home nor yours, “love you too.”

The phone call ended, and you sat back, staring at the ceiling. Saeran was comforting to be around, sure, but… were you going to be comforting for him? You had no energy left. Just making yourself talk on the phone felt like too much work, you honestly just wanted to sleep… sleep for a long time. Maybe a month of two. A year or… ten.

“Alas, life goes on,” You whispered to yourself, attempting to lighten the mood. Forcing yourself to stand, you walked to the bathroom and grabbed a hairbrush, deciding to make yourself somewhat decent for Saeran.

You glanced at the mirror, pulling the brush through your tangled hair. The knots were tough, probably due to running your hands stressfully through your hair so often, and you watched as your face contorted in pain.

“You’re so… ugly,” You sighed to yourself, continuing to brush your hair. “You can’t even handle brushing your hair… it’s not hard. It doesn’t hurt that bad… you’re fine, you know? Just suck it up...”

Sighing, you tossed the hairbrush back onto the counter, then fixed your hair a bit with your hands. “Talking to yourself, huh… not even for a fun conversation. Just… complaining.”

You began your walk towards the kitchen, aiming to grab some medicine to calm your upset stomach. As you stepped, the thoughts continued- upsetting, self-deprecating thoughts, on top of impulsive ones. It was all… too much. Even as you swallowed the pain relieving pill, so many thoughts ran through your brain. Throw this, hit that, do this, clean that. You wanted to pull out your freshly-brushed hair, as you instead opted to chug the water bottle held in your hand.

“Giving your kidneys a boost?” A familiar voice asked, a joking tone laced in the comment. You nearly jumped again, calling yourself lucky for having just finished drinking the water.

“I drink plenty of water, actually. Maybe not today, but I usually do.”

You gently wrapped an arm around the tall boy, feeling him lightly return it, before the both of you sat back quickly. “Saeyoung always tells me that you should drink water every day. Not just when you feel like it.”

“And does Saeyoung follow that?”

Saeran laughed, “does Phd Pepper count?”

���Nope. So, his comments are invalid.”

“I didn’t take them seriously to begin with, sooo…”

You smiled, tossing the empty bottle into the recycling bin, before looking back over at Saeran. “So? What brings you here? Ice cream, a movie, popcorn?”

He shrugged, grabbing a bowl and a spoon, then making his way towards your freezer. He took out the ice cream container, before preparing himself a bowl. “...Want any?” He asked, not bothering to look at you as he did so.

“No, thank you though.”

"Sure… it’s your ice cream, so you don’t really need to thank me.”

After having made his bowl of ice cream, you found yourself resting next to Saeran on the couch. A comfortable silence ensued, and you finally felt at some sort of peace. Though your eyes were shut, at feeling a gaze on you, you peeked them open, catching a glimpse of Saeran as he quickly turned his head. Sitting up a bit, you smiled at his dismissiveness. He’d die before admitting it, but he had been looking at you… you felt lucky. He could look at you without disgust- something not even you could do to yourself.

“What’re you thinking?” You asked after a few minutes. Though the silence was enjoyable, his voice wasn’t something you could complain about either. Honestly, all you wanted to do was hear his sweet voice talk about whatever he pleased, and maybe fall asleep to him talking. The last part was less likely, but-

“You’re acting dumb,” He muttered, turning and shoving a spoonful of ice cream into your mouth. Your eyebrows furrowed in confusion, as you noted the pout on his face. You swallowed the ice cream, your heart rate picking up, worrying that you did something wrong.

“What do you mean?”

“See, you’re already getting defensive. It’s,” He paused a bit, and you didn’t bother speaking, knowing it was hard for him to put things to words. He didn’t want to seem too worried, although it was clear he cared. “It’s weird. You haven’t…” His voice grew quiet, as a pink spread across his face, “texted me as much. And I’ve had to initiate half the calls- and even then, you sometimes don’t pick up. And then, your texts are all quick and boring. I’m not… the best at picking up on things, but I can tell something’s wrong. So, just tell me. That’s what I’m here for, you idiot.”

You sat there, unable to form any words. You hadn’t thought that anything seemed wrong. You were… your normal self, right? He’d been worried just because you… couldn’t keep up with your own mind. His concern was your fault, despite the fact that all you wanted to do was focus on him. To help him. This wasn’t help-

“Stop. Stop thinking whatever you’re thinking. I don’t like that look on your face. You don’t need to force yourself or anything, just… I’m... here. It’s not a problem or a bother or anything.”

Like that, so many of those negative thoughts were contradicted. Your head hurt a bit, as you felt your heart ache. Tears filled your eyes, as everything finally came crashing down. Letting out a sob you were sure was ugly, you felt Saeran tense up next to you. Maybe he wasn’t expecting such a reaction- maybe it was overwhelming for him- still, despite the fact that he could turn away, despite the fact that he didn’t need to care, he wrapped his arms tightly around you. He began to rock you back and forth a bit, petting your head gently, as you had often done for him.

Normally, Saeran struggled to start physical contact. He struggled to deal with it, always needing you to slowly initiate touch. He’d gotten better about it, but just having him hold you so suddenly and so tightly, so comfortingly, made your heart ache further. He’d worked so hard, and, in that moment, you were so proud of him. You felt so much love for him that you were sure your heart was going to burst. And, the way he was treating you made you sure that, even if it wasn’t you yourself, there was someone out there who loved you… Saeran was that someone.

After a few minutes of Saeran holding you as you cried, you found the energy to sit back, wiping your eyes, almost embarrassed of the mess you were sure you’d become. He reached out, wiping some tears for you, before squishing your face slightly. His face was red, eyes slightly watery, as he made direct eye contact.

“Don’t hide your feelings from me… you convince me to tell you things, so you should tell me. If I’m comfortable around you… then, you… should be comfortable around me. It’s not like I have any room to judge you.”

Taking a shaky breath, you leaned back into the hug, the side of your face squishing against his chest. “Can I just… sit here for a bit…? Tell me about your day, please.”

Saeran hesitated, before shifting the two of you, leaning against the couch so that you’d also be reclining a bit. Once settled, he took in a strangely calm breath, before speaking. “Well… when I woke up, Saeyoung said he was making breakfast. It smelled bad though, and I realized he’d used Phd Pepper instead of water in the pancake mix… which, I guess was his way of saying ‘hey, Saeran, you make breakfast today’. So, I made normal pancakes. Actually, I put some… little chocolate chips in them, like the kind we got last time we ate breakfast-”

His voice continued on, as you listened to him describe every detail of his day. A sort of calmness enveloped your heart, along with exhaustion enveloping your body. There in Saeran’s arms, everything felt… safe. Nothing could hurt you, not even the problems, drama, and work that you had just panicked over. There… was no rush to do things. If you took things slowly, maybe… just maybe, it’d all work out. With those thoughts in mind, and Saeran’s voice in the background, you finally fell asleep.

---

“(Y/N)? Are you even listening?” Saeran questioned, lifting a hand from your back. As he did so, he glanced at your face, before freezing up. Realizing you were asleep, he put his hand back, sitting back in place. “They’re… asleep,” He thought, a bright blush growing on his face. Despite himself, he smiled slightly, proud that you were comfortable enough with him to fall asleep on him. He rubbed a hand up and down your back, beginning to realize how sleepy he was. As a few more moments passed, the only sound Saeran could hear being your gentle breathing, he found himself drifting off to sleep as well.

[irishseeeker]

Having a crush on your boss is embarrassing. Inappropriate. Wrong. Especially when your boss is Anthony Bridgerton, the most insufferable man on the planet whom you actively despise.

What does Kate have to say on the matter?

...No comment.

~

Kate doesn’t know how it started.

Kate Sheffield did not like her boss. She actively despised her boss, Anthony Bridgerton, and he despised her. It was like a hobby. Her hatred for him was like a pet, like Newton, her gorgeous corgi, that she tended to and nurtured by making Bridgerton’s life as difficult as possible.

Except, something had changed.

She still despised him, she hadn’t gone completely insane-expect, that loathing went from pure loathing to...loathing with a side of oh, Anthony Bridgerton looks good in that suit today.

She now noticed things like when he got a haircut. His chestnut hair had been cut sharp, there was still a bit of height on the top but it was shaven quite tight around his ears.

He looked good.

Really good.

She wasn’t a teenager anymore. She was an adult. A 29 year old adult with a degree. A nice apartment. She even had house plants she managed to keep alive.

She shouldn’t have crushes like this.

Especially on him.

She didn't. Nope. She couldn't. Kate Sheffield did not have a crush on Anthony Bridgerton.

It wasn't possible.

He was just on her mind a lot, she tended to stare at him quite a bit and she may have a new routine of stalking his social media on a daily basis.

So, to conclude, she definitely did not have a crush on Anthony Bridgerton.

It was probably some type of illness. She could have an underlying cold coming on that deluded her into thinking Anthony Bridgerton was good looking and looked really good in expensive suits and his gym gear when it came into the office late every Wednesday after a personal training session in the morning.

Oh God.

It had gotten to the point where it was affecting her work.

Like right now.

She should be working on her mountain of paperwork sitting on her desk, but instead, she was watching Bridgerton stretch through his office glass windows. His office was parallel to hers on the top floor of Bridgerton & Family group building. It was the headquarters of the decades old Bridgerton & Family hotel group. Kate was the head of finance for their United Kingdom group, specifically dealing with approving budgets and projects. She had qualified as an accountant when she was 24 and had moved up from there.

She could see his white shirt, which probably cost more than her rent and was never wrinkled, slowly rise above his waist as he stretched his arms. She could see the outline of his pelvis, and the tanned skin he must have got from his recent work trip to Barbados. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, which showed off his forearms quite nicely. When did he get muscular?

The phone rang, making her jump and resulting in her reusable coffee cup spilling all down her white blouse.

“Shit!”

“All okay?” Sophie, her assistant, popped her head in.

“Just a coffee spill, thanks Sophie.” Kate said, sighing as she grabbed her blazer and buttoned it up, which covered the brown stain on her chest.

“I just sent you the proposal from Anthony!” Sophie called through the door. Sophie Beckett had been Kate’s incredible assistant for a year now. She was a few years younger than Kate, and she was working to put herself through university. Kate dreaded the day she lost her, but also signed her up for company funded courses as Sophie would go far in life and Kate couldn’t wait to see what she achieved.

“Cheers!” Kate shouted back, sitting down at her desk and opening up her email. Her eyes scanned the email and the proposal, and her stomach dropped as her chest filled with fury.

“That motherfucker,” Kate spat, shoving herself away from her desk as she stormed towards Anthony Bridgerton’s office, ready to commit murder.

Gregory, his assistant and younger brother, wasn’t at his desk. She had checked Bridgerton’s work calendar and it was clear, so he wasn’t with a client. She didn’t bother knocking.

That was her first mistake.

“Bridgerton, I don’t know if you were dropped on your head as a child-“

Her voice caught in her throat. His office was occupied by two other men, who had heard every single word she had just said.

That was her second mistake.

“Oh! I am so sorry," Her cheeks flushed with red mortification and she wanted the ground to swallow her whole. "I can come back-”

Anthony sat behind his desk, smugly beaming at her as she flushed in embarrassment. “Ah, Kate. Charming as always. I was waiting for you to storm in and annoy me today. Have you met my brothers? This is Benedict and Colin,” He gestured to the two men sitting in front of him.

“The famous Kate Sheffield,” Benedict extended his hand, grinning at her as he stood up. “It is an honour to meet you.”

“We’ve heard so many great things,” Kate raised an confused eyebrow at Colin as he stood up and spoke, shaking his hand as well. “From Gregory. We’re big fans of your daily torment of our dear older brother.”

“He definitely was dropped, by the way,” said Colin, grinning cheekily at Anthony who scowled at him. “Mother would never admit to it, but it would explain a lot.”

Kate laughed at him as Anthony scowled. “The chances of you getting the travel money you wanted are looking incredibly low, dearest brother,” said Anthony, narrowing his eyes at his Colin. “What did you want, Sheffield? I’m busy.”

There was a knock at the door just as Kate opened her mouth to retort, and Sophie popped her head in the doorway. “Excuse me for interrupting,” She said, looking at Kate. “Kate, there’s an important phone call waiting for you. Hi Anthony.”

"Hey, Sophie," said Anthony, pleasantly smiling at her which made Kate glare at him in disgust. Sophie and Bridgerton liked each other. Sophie had said on more than one occasion that he wasn't as bad as Kate made him out to be, and Kate usually threw a pen at her.

“Thank you, Sophie,” She smiled at her assistant, before turning around back to Bridgerton and putting the proposal on his desk with the word ‘DENIED’ scribbled across it in red sharpie. “I don’t want to see this proposal on my desk again. I don't feel like denying it for a fourth time.”

Benedict had turned around and was staring at Sophie, and Anthony rolled his eyes. This was one of their new arguments, that had been going on for a few weeks over a hotel design proposal that Anthony desperately wanted and Kate wouldn’t approve under any circumstances.

“Your wants aren’t really my concern, Sheffield,” Anthony said, his tone dismissive. “It’s an excellent proposal-”

Kate snorted. “It’s an obnoxious, reckless, extremely over the top hotel proposal that is not going to happen just to boost your ego. The Board would never agree to it and I certainly won’t.”

“We’ll see about that,” He smirked at her, but his eyes were glaring at her. “The Board are very fond of me. I can be very persuasive.”

“You need finance clearance and-oh. Who in finance has that authority?” She tilted her head slightly, before looking back at him to smirk right back at his smug face. “That’s right, me.”

“Who is CEO of the company and whose name is on the company?” Anthony retorted, furrowing his brows before smirking at her. “That’s right,” He mimicked her, “Me.”

“Does this happen often?” Benedict asked, amused as his head flicked between Kate and Anthony.

Gregory Bridgerton, who was eating a packet of crisps, appeared at the doorway and joined the conversation. “Everyday.”

“Every single day,” Sophie added in agreement, smirking slightly which faded as her cheeks turned crimson when she caught Benedict’s eye, quickly looking away.

“No it does not!” Both Kate and Anthony said at the same time.

Kate shook her head in frustration, “I have to go. If you email me that proposal again, I will stamp it once again with DENIED and hammer it onto your door until the message gets through your thick skull.”

“I am your boss, Sheffield,” said Anthony, his tone rather sharp. “You can’t talk to me like that.”

“Oh, forgive me,” Kate said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Should I write it down so you will actually understand what I’m saying?”

Anthony glared at her furiously, pushing himself up with his fists. “You can shove it up your-”

“So lovely to meet you both,” said Kate, interrupting Anthony’s insult loudly as she smiled at his laughing two brothers before walking out of the room, Sophie at her heels.

It was no way to talk to her boss, he was right, but they had long passed the proper etiquette of employer and employee relationships. They regularly insulted and shouted at each other, whether it was in person, over text or on the phone, and it just sort of became what they did. It somehow worked, as they worked well together and the company was making its highest profits to date.

Kate sat at her desk, her heart thumping in her chest. What was she thinking? She did not like that man. He infuriated her. She grabbed her jacket on the back of her chair and quietly screamed into it, then took a deep breath before answering the phone. “Edwina? Is everything okay? Is it Mary? Is it Newton?”

“Relax, Kate,” Her sister said, with amusement in her voice. “I had to say it was an emergency for you to answer during work. It is technically an emergency.”

“Not funny,” Kate mumbled, resting her cheek against her desk and putting the phone on speaker. “What’s wrong? Is everything okay?”

Kate heard her sister swallow before biting the bullet. “I need you to come to this charity gala tonight.”

“No.”

“Kate-”

“No!”

“My date just bailed on me for Paris fashion week. I can’t go alone. It would be so embarrassing. He’s already been photographed with some Russian model this morning,” Her sister’s voice broke slightly. “Please, Katie.”

Edwina was her younger sister by four years, and she was a famous supermodel. She had been scouted when they were walking down Oxford Street, and it had been runways, magazines and brand deals for Edwina ever since. Kate would do anything for her sister, especially when she pleaded with her, even if that thing made Kate want to set herself on fire.

Actually, she probably would prefer having a civilized conversation with Anthony Bridgerton than go to one of Edwina’s events. That’s how much Kate hated them.

She groaned. “Fine, but two hours top. I will choose what I wear and if you try to set me up, I will leave.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you! “ Her sister squealed to the phone. “Be at mine at six! Do not be late! I love you.”

“I love you too, but I want you to know at this very moment, I really despise you,” Kate said as she heard her sister chuckle before hanging up. Excellent. She hated Edwina’s events. She had been to many of Edwina’s parties, galas and events, which involved Kate trailing behind her famous sister who everyone cooed and praised and only ever acknowledged Kate with a “Oh! I didn’t know you had a sister!” after Edwina introduced her.

As if her day couldn’t get any worse.

She heard a buzz, and then Sophie’s voice over the intercom. “Can I get you anything?”

Kate groaned. “The will to live.”

“How about a milkshake?”

She lifted her head off her desk slightly, perking up. “Please. Chocolate with extra crème. I’m feeling fragile.”

“Of course, I’ll go right away,” Sophie spoke, hesitating slightly before continuing. “Anthony has just sent an invite for the hotel proposal presentation with the Board in a few weeks. Talktoyoulaterbye!”

Kate’s head snapped up off her desk, “What?” She spat out, fury filling her veins and she twisted her neck towards his office. He was looking right at her, smirking like the devil himself, and he had the audacity to wave.

Kate’s middle finger waved right back.

a/n: chapter 2 coming soon!

[yellowocaballero]

Not Your Queer-Coded Disney Villain: Annabelle & Web!Jon Ficlet

Got bored again today and forced myself to write something that wasn’t gratuitously long. Set in the same universe (or, one of the universes) as The Convention on Chronographer Lane, but it’s completely unnecessary to have read that one before this. 

Content warning for (apparent and fake) predation of a student by a teacher, body horror, and spiders. REVERSE content warning for A PSYCH 101 LECTURE WRITTEN BY SOMEONE WHO WAS A TA FOR PSYCH 101. ACCURATE SCIENCE, BITCHES. 

“What am I turning into?” Annabelle asked, after a half-second of rapid thought. “Who are you? And what do spiders have to do with any of this?”

Jon smiled again broadly, grey eyes dancing with a barely hidden delight. “You’re fully aware that these are all the same question.”

“Then answer them. You said you’re here to help me. Then help me.” Annabelle narrowed her eyes. “We’ll negotiate a price later.”

“This one is a freebie,” Jon said. He leaned back, face fading into the shadow of the dim yellow light of the hanging light. “You’re turning into something much akin to myself.”

In the darkness, Annabelle saw Jon open his eyes. And his eyes. And his eyes. And his eyes…

Annabelle was sleeping through Psych again.

In her defense, she was really tired. The nightmares had been getting worse every day, and yesterday she hadn’t gotten more than forty minutes of sleep without jolting up in the middle of the night. She had flipped on the light five times during the night, hysterically convinced that bugs were crawling over her and earning the eternal ire of her roommate. Whatever - Irene would forgive her once she bought her an iced coffee from that campus shop she liked. If Annabelle gave it to her later at night, she’d stay up later and would be less likely to bitch when Annabelle inevitably made a stink at three am again.

It didn’t matter. Psych was tediously easy anyway. Not that everything wasn’t tedious, but there were few things more boring than listening to the drone of Mr. Sims’ voice. She had no idea how that guy had a fanclub. Emmanuela Odugawa had asked her if she thought that he recited Piaget’s developmental stages in bed. Barf. 

Thankfully, Annabelle had mastered the art of sleeping with her eyes open in class and barely aware enough to recognize when somebody called her name a decade ago, and she ruthlessly used this skill now. She dropped into a half-doze, and was only startled into awareness when she heard the word that had been running in a nonstop track loop through her mind for the past month. 

“Phobia: an extreme or irrational fear or aversion to something.” Mr. Sims adjusted his glasses, pressing a button on his laptop that advanced the slides. “It’s an interesting definition, in my opinion. Like many things in Psychology, it is almost infuriatingly vague. How do you define ‘extreme’? How do you define ‘irrational’? Oftentimes, that label is determined by society, science, and our therapists. However, I believe you can argue that phobias are the most rational thing of all.”

Annabelle rubbed her arms, suddenly cold. These auditorium classrooms were always freezing. 

“The concept of aversion is heavily rooted in evolution and biology. Anyone here ever eat any bad shrimp?” He didn’t wait for a response. “The smell of seafood probably made you sick for weeks afterwards. Our bodies are primed to detect poison, just as they are to detect danger. Phobias rooted in modern, abstract concepts - clowns, elevators, airplanes - are easy to extinguish. But phobias rooted in real, present, perpetual dangers, the sort of dangers that threatened the lives of cavemen, are far more difficult to ignore.” 

Despite herself, Annabelle found herself awake. She found herself listening. 

“Snakes. Heights. The Dark. Dogs, bears, large animals. Storms, driving, insects.” Mr. Sims’ looked up at the auditorium, and Annabelle could have sworn that he was looking right at her, he was looking at her. Annabelle’s breath caught, her heart thumping in her chest - a little differently than it used to. “Spiders.” 

A horrible clicking echoed in Annabell’s ears. She was afraid that it was her. 

Then he looked away, and the spell was broken. “Phobias are one of the most powerful and motivational forces in human evolution. Like mental illnesses, pack bonds, and emotional needs, the perceived weaknesses of the human mind can frequently be some of the most powerful forces that allow the survival of the human species. It isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. I find that a useful way to think of humanity, and of ourselves: that our weaknesses can make us very strong indeed. Next slide…”

If Mr. Sims said anything after that, Annabelle didn’t hear it.

She didn’t pay any attention to anything he said until the end of class, when she shrugged on her cute little silver backpack and merged into the stream of students filtering out of the classroom. A few students had stayed behind to talk to Mr. Sims, and he appeared wrapped in conversation with the giggling girls, but somehow he picked her out of the thick crowd. 

“Annabelle?” Mr. Sims asked. “Stay after, please.”

So she leaned against the long sweep of desks, left with nothing to do but squint at Mr. Sims as he spoke with another student about the requirements for the upcoming paper, wondering why he looked so familiar. 

All of the other students had assumed he was in his late twenties - “total DILF”, they all inanely assured her - but Annabelle wasn’t so sure. Despite the already graying hair, small glasses, and severe expression, she really wouldn’t put him any older than 23.

Maybe his greying temples were hair dye. Or stress did that to you, right? Annabelle squinted. But when Annabelle looked closer, if she really focused, then she really wasn’t sure it was his hair color at all. 

So she looked closer. Her eyes had been itching for the past week. She had caught her skin flaking and peeling, and instead of pink raw skin underneath there was hard and scratchy black necrosis. Her eyes itched now, as if they were striving to split apart, and if Annabelle only let them then they would burst. And as her eyes itched in a horrible, visceral pain, she thought that maybe the white at Mr. Sims’ temples was the thin, sticky webs of spider-silk. 

“Annabelle? Are you alright?”

She snapped back to attention, fairly embarrassed. She had been zoning out more in the past month than she had her entire life. Her older siblings had said that college would be rough, but she hadn’t known it would be this rough. This wasn’t like her. None of this was like her. 

“I’m great,” Annabelle said reflexively. All of the other students were gone, and Mr. Sims was staring at her over his glasses. “Sorry. Is this about my test…?”

“No. You did quite well on your test. Best in the class, actually.” Mr. Sims smiled at her, as if this was a compliment or important. “Is that why you’ve been so bored in class?”

Ah. Busted. A rare thing for Annabelle. She affected a faux-abashed posture and expression. “Sorry, Mr. Sims. I’ve been staying up ‘til two every morning trying to get my homework done on time. If I’m ever going to go to med school…”

“I thought you were a poli sci major,” Mr. Sims said cheerfully. Annabelle fought a shudder - how did he know so much about her? This class had 200 students.

“Double major,” Annabelle said blithely. “I’m sorry about sleeping in class, I’ll manage my time better. It won’t happen again.”

“Yes, yes.” Mr. Sims waved her apology away, as if that wasn’t what he had been looking for. Then what had he been looking for? “I’m afraid I had somewhat of an ulterior motive for speaking to you today.” He leaned in a little, pulling his glasses down, and his foggy grey eyes - same color as the grey at his temples - focused solely on her. Annabelle made her eyes bigger, and she leaned in too, adjusting her posture so she looked smaller. “You’ve been doing very well in class. I actually wanted to invite you to a meeting. About...oh, your potential for med school. I’m excited to see you succeed. I think you could do quite well in whatever field you choose, and I’d like to help. It would be just us, of course.”

Ding ding ding. Annabelle affected a giggle. “I could totally use the help! Like, in your office? Or, like...lunch, or…?”

“I was thinking dinner, actually,” Mr. Sims smiled. “How’s Bombay Bicycle Club?”

Restaurant and bar, with a casual yet dignified atmosphere. Not formal enough to put up anybody’s guard, but nice enough that a freshman girl could feel treated and be impressed. Most importantly, it was popular among the businessman crowd and almost nobody on campus visited it. Annabelle used it herself to meet up with her sugar daddies all the time. 

For a brief, strange moment, Annabelle felt as if he did - but of course he didn’t. But it wasn’t impossible. But if he knew, then why wasn’t he blackmailing her? Was the blackmail for later, once he got her alone? This was probably a power play, getting her off balance by insinuating that he knows but not being explicit about it. He’d probably pull out the blackmail, ‘I’ll ruin your reputation you slut etc’, once they actually got there. Not that he could - Annabelle had contingency plans - but she would have to be careful to actually record him propositioning her anyway. Worst case scenario they had a MAD situation, best case she could squeeze him. Probably not for very much money, since grad students were poor as dirt, and she didn’t exactly need him to boost her grades...get him to slip her the test key and sell the test key? That could work. She could probably get him to strategically cut grades, which was a service that Annabelle could probably sell to students with a grudge…

But then Mr. Sims smiled at her, as if he knew what she was thinking, and Annabelle realized that she had been silent too long. She wanted to come off as panicked, maybe desperate, definitely flattered. 

“Sure!” Annabelle said, barely having to feign the anxious creak in her voice. “What time? I have night classes, so…”

“Next Friday at six,” Mr. Sims said instantly. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“Me too.” Annabelle affected Smile #35 - shy virgin. Mr. Sims’ grin widened. Annabelle silently put aside the ‘Catholic schoolgirl’ outfit for Friday. “See you then!”

She turned around, gave him a shy smile, and bounced off. She had just opened the heavy door out of the room when she heard him speak again, freezing her in her tracks. 

“Oh, Annabelle - how is the study with Dr. Bates going?”

And his question panicked her so much, made her heart change rhythm and made her skin itch as if something was straining to come out of it, made her eyes itch and crawl and burst, that every calculated move went out the window. She didn’t answer his question, didn’t even give an excuse - she just ran out the door, bright purple vintage boots thumping against the linoleum, breath catching in a chest where she was no longer sure she even had ribs. 

Most of her was already calculating. She was already two months into uni, she had to start establishing her power base. The minute her sorority accepted her she’d have greater access to money, popularity, and influence, but she needed reach with the administration too.  Mr. Sims was her in. This was a good thing. 

But part of her was disappointed, because she had liked him, and she felt a little used. Feelings of disgust, as strong and vivid as in her nightmares, rose in her chest. She squished far down in her chest, familiar with the feeling and effortlessly repressing it.  

Annabelle was good with disgusting things. 

She had another session with the Arachnophobia study on Monday. Which went fine. It was fine! She didn’t wake up that morning so sick with nerves that she almost threw up. She didn’t stare at her email inbox for thirty minutes, begging herself to cancel and drop out of the study. Nope. 

She distracted herself by befriending all of her roommate’s friends and dropping faux-concerned gossip about how cranky and anxious Irene’s been lately, have you noticed she’s been blaming me for how badly she’s sleeping? It was really super sad, frowny face, how do you think I can help, frowny face frowny face frowny face? 

So Annabelle went to the Arachnophobia study (it was fine), had increasingly realistic and vivid nightmares about her chest caving in and a nest of spiders crawling out of her chest and eating her eyes, and slept through class. It was all fine. 

She should have gone to Oxford. It still made her a little bitter. She had been smart enough to get in, but she hadn’t been smart enough to get the full scholarship. She couldn’t afford it, so instead she was stuck in University of Surrey, where dreams went to die. Future politicians should go to Oxford. Yeah, Surrey had some peers and Parliament members, whatever. She needed better, Oxford and awards and money. From there, from some swotty school or another, it was easy street. Annabelle deserved easy street, and she deserved Oxford, and it just wasn’t fair -

After another three am nightmare, Annabelle blearily scrolled through her sibling groupchat. Barney was doing great in med school. Tricia had posted her maternity photos. Wow, look at that, Robin had gotten a commendation at his law firm. Whatever. 

No hope of distinguishing herself in the world. No hope of distinguishing herself in her stupid family. She was smarter than any of her siblings, brighter and better than those doctors and lawyers and accountants, but nobody cared. Mum and Dad were living their retirement in comfort and cooing over their grandchildren, finally rewarded in old age for all their hard work. 

If Annabelle dropped off the face of the earth, nobody would even notice. 

It should have been a depressing thought. The idea that nobody cared about her, not really, that nobody knew the real her. But somehow it just made her heart beat faster in excitement. 

The idea of disappearing from all of this, of cutting herself free from a thousand threads that brought her plummeting down to earth...in the cold hours of that dark morning, to an eighteen year old terrified and alone in uni, it was a siren song. 

It was a siren song that sounded, oddly, like the chittering and scuttling of a thousand tiny bodies, but Annabelle was learning to look beyond that. 

By the time next Friday rolled around, Annabelle was considering breaking her self-imposed rule against drugs and popping a Xanax. But that wouldn’t help her exhaustion, the persistent bone-deep frazzled sensation of going a week on almost no sleep whatsoever, so she settled for an espresso as she wriggled herself into a tight, slinky plaid dress paired with a puffy olive green windbreaker. She wasn’t sure if she owned any clothing that was made after 1990 - a habit born from a childhood of shopping from thirst stores, and continued voluntarily into high school when she started making her own money online fleecing suckers. It was her, so much as anything was. 

“Hot date?” Irene asked, bending over her Physics textbook without looking up. She glanced at her vibrating phone, scowling. Poor baby - her friends were staging an intervention. “New guy or old guy?”

“New guy,” Annabelle said vaguely, carefully picking out a bold red lipstick - or did that seem too forward? Should she go for a natural look? “If I’m not back by midnight call the police. I’ll text you a picture of his car.”

“Roger.” Irene flipped a page of her textbook, oblivious to the fact that she was one of the few people Annabelle genuinely liked. Not enough not to screw with her, but she liked her. “He’s not good enough for you, something something.”

“Darling,” Annabelle said, winking into the mirror, “nobody is.”

She hoped Irene believed it. She didn’t. 

It wasn’t a frequent occurrence that Annabelle wished she was stupid, but today she wished she was stupid enough to take a power nap during her ten minute Uber ride. Her mind felt frazzled and frayed, as if it had been taken out of her scalp and spread out with a rolling pin onto a floured countertop. She felt as if she was melting, her vision spiralling into fractals or blurring out. She wanted to sleep. God, she’d do anything for some sleep -

So she blared Bad Romance in her frayed earbuds instead, clutching her iPod Touch tightly, pulling herself together. Gaga, give her strength. 

By the time that she tipped her driver, effortlessly found Mr. Sims’ car in the parking lot of Bombay Bicycle Club and texted Irene the license plate (Volkswagen, obviously), she had dragged herself into focus. She stapled on her confident posture and walk - no, we’re going with ingenue today, make it shy and hesitant - and slipped inside the restaurant, making a show of holding her clutch tight to her chest and looking around with big eyes. 

She saw him instantly. He was sitting in a corner booth, head down and texting on his phone with a half-smile. The corner booth was poorly lit, light dampened by the wood panelling and soft leather seats, and half of his face was draped in shadow. 

Great. She had even arrived ten minutes early just so she could pick a brightly lit, intimate little table in the center of the room. This guy - he was almost like her. He was almost like her, but he was better. 

Annabelle fought the urge to grind her teeth. She smiled instead, waving cheerfully until he raised his head. He smiled back at her, wriggling his fingers, and Annabelle wove around the tables until she could slide into the seat across from him. 

“This is cozy!” She said brightly. “Thank you so much for inviting me out, Mr. Sims. It’s been ages since I got away from my books -”

“Oh, cut that shit out,” Mr. Sims said, bored. “I’m not going to sleep with you.”

Annabelle’s mind shut down. Error 404, blue screen of death. 

“I’m sorry,” she said pleasantly, smile frozen on her face. “What?”

But Mr. Sims just shrugged listlessly, slumping against the cushioned wall. His expression was no longer fond, indulgent, haughty. He just looked bored now, as if he was too tired and underpaid to deal with eighteen year olds. “I don’t want to sit through this entire dinner fending off flirting. We have actual business to talk about, and I am uninterested in beating around the bush when there’s no point. You aren’t even subtle.”

“Excuse me -” Annabelle started, enraged, but Mr. Sims put up a hand and cut her off. 

The change was instant. On a dime, Mr. Sims straightened his posture, swept a finger through his hair to transform it from slicked back professor type to windswept, adopted a friendly and casual expression, and leaned in as if he was happy and excited to be sitting with Annabelle. In a moment he dropped ten years. Barely a second after his transformation the waiter approached them, holding a notepad, and Annabelle realized with a start that he had noticed the waiter coming before she did. 

“How are you two doing tonight?” the waiter asked politely, smiling at the both of them in a rote routine that Annabelle remembered from her own days waitressing. 

“Doing great!” Mr. Sims said, and even his accent was different, closely matching her own. He glanced back at Annabelle, nothing but open and friendly. “Mum says get whatever you want, dork. It’s on her bill, so let’s run her out of house and home.”

Instinctually, Annabelle shot back, “Aren’t you old enough to take me out to eat with your own money, loser?”

“Not with your stomach!” Mr. Sims laughed, and the waiter chuckled along too. Mr. Sims effortlessly rapped out an order for the waiter, before Annabelle even got a chance to look at the menu, and when she floundered Mr. Sims just rolled his eyes and ordered for her too. It was, somehow, her favorite food. 

He waited for the waiter to move onto the next table, eyeing him carefully, before he let the persona drop. Mr. Sims sagged again, dropping the friendly act, sizing her up from half-lidded eyes. 

“How did he even believe that,” Annabelle said flatly. “We don’t look anything alike.”

“White people will believe anything,” Mr. Sims said, rolling his eyes. “I have the Belgian government convinced I’m an Iraqi scientist and most high profile Australian celebrities think I’m Egyptian royalty.”

“...does Egypt have -”

“Nope.”

Annabelle was beginning to feel a little like the star actress in the school play who got upstaged in every way by the villain’s performance. Nobody did what she did. Nobody did what she did, but better. 

“Don’t feel insecure,” Mr. Sims said, as if he could read her mind. “I’m a good actor, and I’m excellent at reading people. But I can’t plan or plot like you do. I’m shit at thinking three steps ahead, much less thirty. You can keep plots and schemes going for years - decades, even, if I were to guess. I’m not sure how someone as competent as you can have self-esteem issues.”

Annabelle bristled. “You try having nobody care about you for - how do you even know that shit about me?” Something terrible occurred to her. “Are you some kind of stalker, Mr. Sims?”

Mr. Sims shuddered in real disgust. “It’s Jon. And no, of course not. You just aren’t as subtle as you think you are.”

Yes, she was. She was subtle to everyone on the planet - everyone save, maybe, Jon. Annabelle narrowed her eyes. “What do you want?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Jon said immediately. 

“Liar. Everybody wants something.”

“I’m here altruistically,” Jon said, the perfect picture of innocence. “Really. I’m here to help you, Annabelle.”

“You are stalking me.” Annabelle leaned forward, but Sims didn’t move. “Are you even a real graduate student?”

“Absolutely not. I’m twenty three, I got my Psych degree last year and I’ve been bouncing odd jobs since.” Jon shrugged, as Annabelle felt silently vindicated. Nothing about this man acted like a twenty three year old - she remembered her siblings at twenty-three, there was nothing adult about them - but it was probably just another persona. She wondered how far she’d have to scratch to get to the real Jon Sims. 

“So you were just at Surrey to spy on me,” Annabelle said slowly. “I don’t know what country you’re from, but in England that’s definitely stalking.”

“I’d call it scouting,” Jon said. The waiter dropped by to place their drinks on the table - Jon had gotten a mule for himself, and he had ordered water for Annabelle in a move uncharacteristic for a sketchy guy. He waited until the waiter left to continue. “Call me a recruiter.”

“For who? What kind of job recruiter teaches a class for two months just to get to me?”

“How’s your study with Dr. Blake going, Annabelle?” Jon said, almost randomly, and Annabelle shut up. He must have seen something in her eyes, because a sharp little grin stretched in the corner of his narrow and sharp face. “Thought so. What do you dream of, Annabelle? In the cold corners of night, what fears come to life in the dark recesses of your mind?”

Maybe, Annabelle thought inanely, this was a dream too. Just an extended nightmare, one she hadn’t woken up from. It felt like that: distant and strange, hyper-real and unreal. This strange man sitting in front of her, who swapped faces so easily even Annabelle couldn’t keep up, was far too out of place to truly exist. 

Or maybe he was the first real person she had met in a very long time. 

Jon continued talking, as if she had responded. Maybe she had. “I am not a hero in this story. If I was, I would have come earlier. I would have deleted your name from the pool of subjects, and I would have made it so that you never got that call.” Jon looked away from her for the first time, letting a little sadness show on his face. “I couldn’t. No - no, I could have, I simply chose not to. You’re important, Annabelle. And I didn’t want to rob you of something that you may grow to treasure. I’m afraid that the choice you make now may not be much of a choice at all - but, perhaps, there is still a chance. At the very least, I would like to make this transition a little easier for you. It is a terrible thing, to have to do it alone.”

That…

“That was so vague it was completely meaningless.”

Jon barked a laugh, strangely delighted. “It’s not fair to speak in circles to somebody who’s gone a week without sleep!”

“But you’re doing it on purpose,” Annabelle said, too dead inside to feel mad.

“Oh, absolutely. I am not taking the risk of taking you on at full power.” Jon smiled at her, as if they were friends sharing a joke. “I saw what you did to that Walker boy in secondary.”

Despite herself, Annabelle smiled. “Hear he gets out on parole in five.” Something else occurred to her, a bit belatedly. “You are stalking me!”

“Does a spider stalk the fly that strikes a string on its web?” Jon asked cheerfully. “Or is it simply investigating an encroachment into its territory?”

“Does that mean that you’re going to eat me?” Annabelle said archly. “Thought you said you didn’t want to fuck me. Rude, by the way.”

Almost hilariously, Jon wrinkled his nose. “Sex is a waste of time, resources, and my attention. Can’t imagine why people are so obsessed.”

“I know, right!” Annabelle burst out, before she could help herself. “Do you have any idea how much money I get a month from guys just to talk to me? It’s like they’re aliens! Why do people fuck or date if it’s not to manipulate someone?”

“Right! It’s ridiculous.”

It was the first time anybody had ever agreed with her on that. It was the first time she had even told anybody she felt that way. For a brief second, Annabelle felt connected to Jon. It was the first time that happened in...a very long time. 

Jon was the first person Annabelle had ever met who was like her. Everybody in Annabelle’s life had always been either useful or useless. Jon seemed above that, somehow. To be beyond utility, to exist on your own power...what did that look like? To be the powerful, instead of the powerless?

No matter how hard she tried, no matter how many puppet strings Annabelle tied around her fingers, she was never powerful. Not really. She was eighteen, from a nothing family, and no matter how many molehills she made herself queen of she would never rule the mountain. She couldn’t get as far as she wanted with what she had. The only reason she had even volunteered for the stupid Arachnophobia experiment was because she needed to crush out weakness in herself, erase the hidden flaws in her mind.

But Jon said her flaws were strengths. What made her weak could be turned into power. 

Annabelle needed more, more, more. She needed everything, if she was to have anything. She needed what Jon had. 

Everything Annabelle said had a purpose. Every word she used was chosen carefully, every little gesture or body language was calculated. She said nothing without thinking, and she could do it so quickly nobody even noticed. Jon would notice, a con man as perfect as she was.

Let him. Give her two straight days to sleep, and they’d have a real battle of wits. In the meantime, she just had to pick her questions strategically.

“What am I turning into?” Annabelle asked, after a half-second of rapid thought. “Who are you? And what do spiders have to do with any of this?”

Jon smiled again broadly, grey eyes dancing with a barely hidden delight. “You’re fully aware that these are all the same question.”

“Then answer them. You said you’re here to help me. Then help me.” Annabelle narrowed her eyes. “We’ll negotiate a price later.”

“This one is a freebie,” Jon said. He leaned back, face fading into the shadow of the dim yellow light of the hanging light. “You’re turning into something much akin to myself.”

In the darkness, Annabelle saw Jon open his eyes. And his eyes. And his eyes…

All eight of Jon’s glittering black eyes shone in the darkness, straining her own and making her head thump. It was wrong, outside of humanity or reality, and it felt as if the very sight was straining the fabric of her delicately maintained life so tight it would tear. It felt as if it was tearing her, right in two, ruining her forever. Her eyes felt like they were going to burst out of her head. 

She didn’t want to know what would replace them. But she had the feeling that she already did. 

“Then what,” Annabelle gritted out, “are you?”

“I am the eldest and most treasured Son of the Mother of Spiders,” Jon said. He smiled at her, just a little, almost apologetic. “Sorry about that. I know you’ve always wanted to be an only child.”

Ah. Duh. Obviously. She should have known.

“...do I want to know who the Mother of Spiders is?”

“Your mother, should you choose to accept her,” Jon said cheerfully, leaning back into the light, and his face was normal again. Human as ever. Strange and foreign as ever - possibly everything, possibly nothing. “I know you aren’t strictly in the market for adoption, but you may not have much of a choice. You’ve felt her scratching beneath her skin. She’s going to tear out of you, and soon. Did you know some species of wasp lay their eggs in the body of spiders to provide food for the grubs?”

“During the next experiment,” Annabelle said dully, already filtering out Jon’s useless tidbits of information. That was a guy who spoke for the sake of hearing himself talk. “That’s when it’s happening. When I’ll...change.”

“Yes. It’s a painful process,” Jon said, and it was almost apologetic. “My own happened when I was fifteen - quite young, all things considered. I still remember the sound of my bones snapping as -”

“Don’t.”

“Of course! Anyway, I thought I’d make sure you had...to use the psych term, informed consent, before you entered the crucible. Our - my, sorry - Mother often foregoes true consent in our operations. The beauty of nature!” Jon laughed, as Annabelle felt sick. “Agnes wanted to put together a pamphlet, but then we let Gerry go wild on the clipart and...well, it’s better if I just explain. I can’t give you the full story now, but I’ll tell you as much as your mind can comprehend.”

Annabelle wasn’t sure she could even comprehend this. It was so much, and she was so tired. She had just heard that her body was going to rupture like a cocoon and give birth to a giant spider that may or may not also be her, and all she could think about was the fact that she wanted to go back to bed. Somehow, all she could ask was -

“Why?” She asked, so stupid and pointless, as if she was stupid, as if she wasn’t her at all. “Why are you doing this?”

“It’s like I said.” In the dim yellow lighting, Jon’s eyes glittered pure black, and in that brief and stupid second Annabelle felt as if they were the same in that way. “Nobody should have to go through this alone and ignorant.” Then the moment was over, and his eyes were a human grey again, just left of normal. “Besides. Siblings stick together, right?”

“I hardly need more siblings,” Annabelle snapped. 

“You’re about to lose seven of them real soon,” Jon promised, extremely worryingly, “so I’d take what you can get right now, Annabelle.”

“Are you going to kill -”

“Unfortunately, you may have to fake your own death!”

Then their food came, and Annabelle received her first lesson in the class of hard knocks. 

They talked for hours. It took hours, to even just get a picture of the story. Jon was patient, answering every question, and Annabelle strained so hard trying to fight through her exhaustion, trying to understand the answer, Jon’s motivation in answering it or what he could be leaving out, that by the end of it she felt as if she had run a marathon. She had never felt so tired in her life, in the most dangerous situation in her life, with the most dangerous person she had ever met. 

By the end of it, Irene was texting her to ask if she was dead, and Annabelle was falling asleep at her chair. Jon cut an end to their conversation when he slid out his wallet, covered the bill with a black Amex card, and slid a business card against the table. Annabelle squinted down at it. 

The text in the center just said [FREELANCERS]. That was it. She stared at it.

Underneath the vague word, she saw a phone number [555-555] and an email [email@organization.gov]. Annabelle looked up to stare at Jon. “Are you for real?”

“Almost never,” Jon said cheerfully, “but the card will make sense when it needs to. Let me take you back to your dorm, alright? You can get some sleep in the car.”

If he was a creep, she was dead anyway. Annabelle didn’t bother arguing. She grabbed her jacket and got in the passenger seat of his car, and true to his word Annabelle drifted asleep almost immediately. She even felt as if the ride took longer than ten minutes, as if he drove in circles just waiting for her.

For the first time in a week, Annabelle slept uninterrupted, and had no dreams.

Annabelle wanted what Jon had. 

And a week later, she took it. 

Shivering in an alley, clothing ripped to shreds, her own skin hanging off her triple jointed limbs, she dug out a creased and torn business card. She had been worrying at it intensely over the weekend, staring and it and clenching it tightly as if it was her only lifeline. It was, of course. But Jon had known that.

The card looked different now. The text now looked handwritten, but with a beautiful and old-timey slanted handwriting. It now just read: 

‘To Annabelle, with love. From your new friends Gerry, Jon, and Agnes’. There was a number underneath, and Annabelle frantically dug in her tattered leather jacket pocket to draw out her cracked phone. 

Annabelle hated taking favors from people. Everything she had, she had fought for herself. She would scrape, borrow, beg, and steal whatever she had to. But, when it came to siblings...maybe, then, it was okay.

Dizzily, as Annabelle let the phone ring, she thought: this is my supervillain origin story. 

The thought sent a slow smile crawling across her inhuman and warped face. 

Sounds like fun. 

[barisiscourtroom]

@thejuryisout​ Thanks for the prompt! ♥

Prompt 6 on the prompt list in question is “Doing face masks or other beauty treatments”, and I went with face masks. Kinda. It's mostly just Rafael taking care of a tired Sonny tbh, 2k of fluff. =)

This is also heavily inspired by Sonny's UC at that rapist shelter in 17x19 (Sheltered Outcasts), but I see it as taking place at some vague later time. Sonny is still a detective though, and it all takes place after he’s done.

Not important at all, but I googled “italian restaurants delivery manhattan” for a restaurant name, so that *is* an actual restaurant, but I know absolutely nothing about it more than it's Italian, in Manhattan, and probably delivers.

Big thanks to @novemberhush​ for the beta and all the help with this ♥

I hope you all like it! ♥

To Be Home ao3

2100 words | Gen characters: Sonny Carisi, Rafael Barba tags: Established Relationship, Fluff, Cuddling & Snuggling, Rafael takes care of Sonny, Tired Sonny, Soft Rafael, Spoiled Sonny, Non-Sexual Nudity

The first thing Rafael did upon seeing Sonny at the precinct after Sonny had been undercover for two weeks was to cup his face between his hands and say, "Oh, baby, you look like shit."

Sonny rolled his eyes and said, "Thanks, I’ve missed you too."

Olivia and the rest of the squad didn’t give them more time than that to catch up before demanding Sonny’s time, and it was nearly four hours before they got home.

Rafael wasn’t wrong, though, Sonny really did look like shit. The bags under his eyes were big and dark, he hadn’t shaved in days, his hair was greasy and messy, his clothes ill-fitting, worn, and had some unpleasant stains. He also had some bruises after getting jumped for being thought to be a rapist a couple of days earlier, but those were all under his clothes.

Thankfully it was Friday, and they both had the weekend off. Sonny would possibly get calls about the case, but Olivia had promised him he wouldn’t have to come in until Monday morning, and even though he wanted to work the case after spending so much time on it, he was looking forward to a nice, relaxing, and most importantly comfortable weekend at home, just him and Rafael and good food and soft sheets and their wonderful shower.

Rafael asked if he wanted to cook when they got home, he knew how much Sonny liked it and how it could be downright therapeutic for him, but he could obviously also see how tired Sonny was.

"Do you want me to order take out tonight, or do you want to cook?" he asked.

Sonny sighed. "Take out," he said regretfully. "I do want to cook, but not today."

"Okay, you can cook tomorrow," Rafael said. "I’ll even help you."

"Oh boy, you have missed me," Sonny teased.

"I have missed you, my Sunshine," Rafael said, squeezing his hand. "It’s been awfully dark around here without you."

"Rafael," Sonny said, a little choked up. Rafael was very good with words when he wanted to be.

But for someone being so good with words, Rafael could sometimes have a hard time admitting things, like that he had missed Sonny, so it meant a lot to Sonny that he said that. He always showed it in other ways though, by being more tactile than usual mostly, but also by taking care of Sonny.

"Let’s go get you cleaned up and into something more comfortable," Rafael said.

"Yeah," Sonny said.

"Shower or bath?" Rafael asked as he led Sonny to their bedroom.

"Shower," Sonny said. He’d just fall asleep in a bath, and their shower really was wonderful, he had missed it.

"Okay, I’ll put out some things for you," Rafael said, opening drawers to get clothes for him.

Sonny slowly stripped his clothes off and put them in the laundry basket, and Rafael went to the bathroom, then Sonny put his phone to charge on his nightstand before joining Rafael. The clothes were in a neat pile on a shelf, a fresh towel hung outside the shower, and Rafael was fiddling with the bottles in the shower.

He turned to Sonny and looked him over when he entered the bathroom, momentarily frowning at his bruises, but then he looked Sonny in the eyes. "Oh my, there’s a naked man in my bathroom, what ever will I do," he said.

"You could kiss him?" Sonny suggested.

Rafael smiled and walked up to him to slide his arms around his waist. "Great idea," he said and tilted his head up for a kiss that Sonny readily gave him. It didn’t last long, but even those few seconds were enough for Sonny to feel some leftover tension in his body dissipate.

"I’ve missed you," he said against Rafael’s lips, and Rafael tightened his grip on him and kissed him again.

When Rafael pulled back, he frowned and gently touched next to one of Sonny’s bruises. "I don’t like this," he muttered quietly.

"It’s not too bad," Sonny said.

Rafael’s face didn’t change as he met Sonny’s eyes. "I still don’t like it," he said.

Sonny smiled. "I know, and I love you for that," he said, and Rafael’s face softened.

He cupped Sonny’s cheek, brushed his thumb over his scruff. "Straight razor tomorrow?" he asked.

"Yes, please," Sonny said, nearly groaning. He had planned on shaving that day, but he loved it when Rafael shaved him with the straight razor, and he could stand being scruffy for another day if it meant he got that.

"Good. Go shower, cariño," Rafael said. "I was going to empty your bag while you do that, is that okay?"

"Yeah, of course, thanks," Sonny said. He pressed a kiss to Rafael’s forehead and stepped into the shower, and Rafael caught his hand on his way to give it a quick squeeze before leaving the bathroom.

The shower was divine, but Sonny didn’t linger. He showered carefully, washed himself meticulously, because he felt filthy and he wanted to get everything from that undercover stint off his body, but while he didn’t hurry, he didn’t stay longer than necessary either.

Once he was done and dry enough, he put on the clothes Rafael had picked for him, underwear, pajama pants, and a soft v-neck, and left the bathroom. His bag was gone from the bedroom, and his phone was still charging, so he left it on the bedside table and went to find Rafael.

"Babe?" he said.

"Yes, cariño?" Rafael said, coming from the kitchen.

Sonny smiled and pulled him in for a hug, nuzzling his face against his neck. "I just missed you," he said.

"I’m right here," Rafael said softly, holding onto him. "I was just preparing for dinner, it’ll be here soon."

"What are we having?" Sonny asked.

"Antonucci," Rafael said, and Sonny groaned, he hadn’t had proper Italian food in two weeks, the closest was mediocre pizza that was only Italian in name. "Figured you’d want some comfort food today."

"You figured right," Sonny said. "Thanks."

Rafael pulled back to cup Sonny’s face between his hands. He smiled and leaned in for a peck on the lips, then he trailed gentle fingers over his face, his forehead and under his eyes. "How about we do some face masks tonight?"

"It’s that bad, huh," Sonny said.

"Well, whatever soap you’ve used hasn’t exactly been kind to your skin. It could use a boost." Rafael said. 

"Face masks tonight, a proper bath together tomorrow?" Sonny suggested.

"Sounds like a plan," Rafael said. "I’ll shave you after the bath."

"Great," Sonny said.

More than an hour later, after a slow meal with wine and dessert, Rafael dragged Sonny to the bathroom to get their face masks on. He had a couple of small single-use face packs, and he got one of those for Sonny, and his usual one for himself. Sonny rinsed his face, patted it dry-ish, then Rafael gently spread an immediately soothing gel on his face.

"Oh, that feels good," Sonny said.

"Good, I haven’t tried that one before, but it’s supposed to be good," Rafael said.

"Am I your guinea pig?" Sonny asked, smiling.

"Stop smiling so much, relax your face," Rafael said and rolled his eyes. "And no, my mother swears by it and I trust her, I just haven’t gotten around to trying it myself yet."

"Whatever you say, dear," Sonny said, working hard not to grin.

Rafael huffed, but he was smiling as he finished spreading the gel. "There," he said.

Sonny stayed to watch as Rafael rinsed his own face and applied his usual one, because he liked watching Rafael, then they went to sit in the living room to let their masks do their work for 20 minutes.

"I want to cuddle," Sonny said.

"Okay?" Rafael said.

"Like, put my head on your shoulder and tuck my face against your neck, or put my head on your chest to listen to your heart," Sonny said.

"I think you will survive 20 minutes," Rafael said.

Sonny sighed deeply. "Doubtful," he said, and Rafael laughed quietly. "Stop smiling so much, relax your face."

"Oh, shut up," Rafael said, and Sonny closed his eyes as he leaned back against the couch with a smile on his face. "For being the light of my life, you sure are a nuisance."

"You love me," Sonny said, holding out his hand for Rafael to take, which he did.

"And I have no idea why," he said.

"It’s because I’m tall," Sonny said.

"Or it could be because you’re kind," Rafael said.

"Yeah?" Sonny asked.

"I mean, it doesn’t hurt that you’re tall, but I think there’s something about your face that I like more," Rafael said.

"Really?" Sonny asked. He was probably smiling more than Rafael wanted him to in that mask, but he couldn’t be bothered to try and stifle it.

"It’s a good face, congrats on that, by the way," Rafael said. "I also think it might be because you’re so good and that you make me want to be a better man, that you’re sweet and funny and smart. Or that you’re an SVU detective, that you care so much that you just spent 2 weeks being miserable just to help people."

"Rafael," Sonny said. He turned his head to look at Rafael, found him watching him with a soft smile on his lips. "Come on, don’t make me cry, I have a face mask."

Rafael laughed quietly. "I missed you, Sunshine," he said softly, and Sonny rolled his eyes, which were getting too wet. For Rafael to have said that twice in one day, he must have missed him a lot.

"I said don’t make me cry," Sonny said, but then he squeezed Rafael’s hand. "I missed you too, love."

"I know, and we’ll be clingy and annoying this whole weekend to make up for it," Rafael said.

Sonny sighed happily. "Yeah," he said. "You’ll even help me cook."

"I’ll even help you cook," Rafael agreed. It wasn’t as if he never did, it was more that they were both usually very busy and Rafael wasn’t the biggest fan of cooking, so he tended to take the opportunity to get other things done while Sonny cooked since he didn’t mind doing it on his own.

"Okay, has this been on for 20 minutes yet?" Sonny asked.

"More like five, if even that," Rafael said.

"Oh, come on," Sonny grumbled. "Why did I agree to this today? I’m too cuddly for this."

"We can watch something, take your mind off it for a while?" Rafael suggested.

"Oh, did that Canadian garage guy post anything fun?" Sonny asked, exaggerating the Canadian accent on garage.

"Let’s see," Rafael said, grabbing his laptop from the table.

He had posted, and they watched one of his videos. Sonny would never understand why it was so fun to watch a guy clean a car, but he loved his videos, and while he didn’t think Rafael liked them quite as much as he did, he knew he liked them enough to indulge Sonny and watch some of them with him.

The videos were half an hour long though, and Sonny was far too needy to sit that long without being able to cuddle properly, so twenty minutes into the video he leaned forward to tap the space bar on the laptop, pausing it.

"It’s been 20 minutes," he said.

Rafael laughed quietly and shook his head, but he followed Sonny to the bathroom, where they rinsed their masks off.

"Moisturizer too," Rafael said, taking a pot of moisturizer from the cabinet. Sonny just smiled at him, and Rafael sighed. "You’re milking this."

"Yeah," Sonny said, then closed his eyes as Rafael gently massaged the moisturizer into his skin.

He cupped his chin when he was done and pressed a kiss to Sonny’s lips. "Okay, let’s go see how that filthy car turned out," he said, putting the moisturizer away.

As soon as Rafael sat down, he held his arms out for Sonny, who immediately tucked himself against his side, his head on Rafael’s shoulder, half of his face pressed against his neck. He could barely see the end of the video, but it was worth it, finally getting some proper cuddles.

Rafael held him tight, carding fingers through his hair and touching his face, and once the video was finished, he turned more towards Sonny and wrapped him in his arms.

"It’s good to have you home," he said quietly against Sonny’s hair.

"It’s good to be home," Sonny said.

[dharc16]

DETECTING AND REMOVING NEGATIVE ENERGY IN YOUR BODY AND IN YOUR HOME

Keeping your space and yourself free of negative energies is essential to living a magical life. Want to know how to cleanse your house and body of bad vibes?

* Cleansing/Saining/Smudging with Sage and other herbs such as Rosemary,

* Frankincense and other incense,

* Essential oils (in cleansing products and diffusers),

* Cleansing sprays (with herbs or essential oils),

* Salt,

* Sound,

* Nature Sounds, and of course,

* Crystals!

You will find some specific lessons on these in our unit called HEARTH & HOME. Also there is a lesson called GETTING RID OF NEGATIVE SPIRITS in our unit called ADVANCED BIBLE STUDIES!

When you make energy cleansing a part of your daily wellness routine, the extra effort will be worth it, especially when you’re radiating with light and love. Clearing and purifying your space also helps boost the healing energy of crystals, which act as energy amplifiers.

You don’t have to be a Zen master to notice if the energy feels stagnant and stuck in your home. Simply take a moment to notice if you or your environment feels heavy. In the hectic pace of the modern world, it’s not uncommon to come home from a long day at work feeling overwhelmed. Also, any time you or someone in your home has an argument, the bad energy often accumulates in different pockets of a room. The same goes for the healing process. If you or a loved one is fighting an illness, it’s time for a quick space cleansing ritual.

We know what you’re probably thinking. Here’s yet another chore to add to your list of to-dos. But all it takes is 5 to 10 minutes once or twice a week to truly transform your life. A pure and cleansed environment is also vital for enhancing the healing energy of your crystals. Before you bring crystals into your home, purify your space first so that it amplifies the energy that’s already there. And always be sure to cleanse your crystals before placing them in your collections or using them! (More on that in our unit called CRYSTALS, GEMSTONES, METALS & STONES).

Negative energy seeps into our space constantly so it’s important to keep a positive flow throughout your environment with house cleansing rituals. When your home is purified, it restores balance and harmony to your life, which is essential for giving you and your family a happy and healthy place for deep healing and rejuvenating the spirit. When you make energy cleansing a part of your everyday routine, it’s the perfect remedy for easing the stress and anxiety that comes from the demands of modern living.

A sage, herb or incense cleansing/saining/smudging ritual also gives you the chance to cleanse your crystal collection. While letting the smoke envelop the crystals, take this moment to reinforce and program them for your intention. Remember, the clearer your purpose for each gemstone, the stronger and more effective their healing powers. For instance, ask Rose Quartz to bring unconditional love into your life, Citrine to boost happiness and success, Peacock Ore to enhance pure joy, or any of your favorite gemstones that resonate with your spirit.

Crystals are big-time energy amplifiers, so it’s important to cleanse your crystals and cleanse them often! Healing crystals are constantly transmuting and absorbing negativity, so keep them cleansed and activated by cleansing and charging them regularly. If you’re overcoming an illness, it’s a good idea to cleanse them on a daily basis, especially for crystals used for their healing and energizing effects.

HOW TO GET RID OF NEGATIVE ENERGY IN YOUR BODY

When it comes to ridding the body of toxic energy, healthy eating is a good place to start but sometimes it takes more than organic salads and vitamins to tackle your inner demons. If you’re feeling particularly heavy in the energy department, try these cleansing techniques and free yourself of bad thoughts that are holding you back from your true potential.

FOREST BATHING – If you’ve got a case of the blues, it’s time to get back to nature with forest bathing. Instead of walking the path in order to get from Point A to Point B, take your time to breathe in the incredible healing energy of the forest and its abundance of oxygen permeating the air. Bring along your favorite crystals – we recommend Tree Agate and Aventurine – and wander along the trail at your own pace, taking the time to notice the incredible miracle of life that surrounds you.

CONSCIOUS BREATHING – If you feel stressed or anxious, deep breathing is a simple and easy way to restore your mind-body-spirit to a place of peace and tranquility. Inhale positivity and exhale negativity. It’s that easy!

MUSIC – When it hits you, you feel no pain. That’s the magic of music. Even after cleansing rituals, bad thoughts can still persist, so put them to rest with a collection of your favorite songs. Playing an instrument is also an excellent way to stay in the present moment because when you’re concentrating on notes and chords, you don’t have time for any negative thoughts to get in the way.

DANCE – Even if you have two left feet, play your favorite dance jams, turn up the volume, and dance like no one is watching. You’ll be amazed at how easy it is to shake off a case of the blues. Plus, it’s cheaper than therapy and a lot more fun!

PURIFYING BATH – Water is incredibly healing on its own, so when you add the powerful cleansing and rejuvenating powers of Himalayan sea salt, it makes your bath ever more restorative. Add 2-4 pieces of Himalayan salt rocks to your bath, a few drops of your favorite essential oils, and healing crystals like Amethyst, Aventurine, and Rose Quartz.

[grailfinders]

Fate and Phantasms #97: Nightingale

Today on Fate and Phantasms, we’re making everyone’s favorite medical practitioner and biting enthusiast, Florence Nightingale! The good Ms. Flo is the most skilled nurse in Chaldea, with a variety of techniques to deal with disease and ill health on and off the battlefield. She’s not afraid to use them, so try not to get sick.

Check out her build breakdown below the cut, or her character sheet over here!

Next up: RUN! It’s a creature legally distinct from Godzilla!

Race and Background

Nightingale’s a Human, and the variant version gives her +1 Wisdom and Charisma, as well as Insight proficiency and the Crossbow Expert feat. Some settings allow for pistols, but some don’t, and we’re playing it safe here. That feat means you can attack multiple times in a turn with a crossbow, attack within melee range without disadvantage, and if you’re holding a crossbow in your off hand and another weapon in your main hand, you can attack with the weapon as an action and the crossbow as a bonus action.

Nightingale might be a nurse, but she spent most of her time patching up wounds in the army, and the Soldier background gives her proficiency with Athletics and Intimidation, both things she pretty good at.

Ability Scores

Make sure your Wisdom is as high as possible for the best medicine checks and spellcasting. Make your Dexterity the second highest to multiclassing, damage, and to keep your AC up (that’s not exactly heavy armor). Your Charisma is next, you can be “persuasive” when you want to be. And by that I mean you’re terrifying. You may be pretty lucid, but you’re still a berserker; that means you’re hard to take down, and that means your Constitution should be next. Your Strength is pretty low. We don’t need it, but you’re still a berserker, so we’re dropping Intelligence instead. You don’t really care about topics other than medicine, so it’s not like you’ll be using it that much.

Class Levels

1. Cleric 1: Shockingly, the nurse is a Cleric. However, you know the best way to avoid infections to kill anything that could infect you, which definitely makes you more of a War cleric than a life one. As a war cleric, you start out proficient in martial weapons, which means we don’t have to jump through hoops to get your hand crossbow like we did with Shirou’s weapon. You’re also a War Priest, meaning a number of times per day equal to your wisdom modifier you can attack as a bonus action after attacking with your main action. This means you can still have two attacks per turn without having to dual wield like your feat wants you to.

You also learn Spells that you can cast and prepare using your Wisdom. You also get Domain Spells, which always count as prepared and you don’t have to spend prep time getting, like Divine Favor and Shield of Faith. The former makes your gun run a little hotter with radiant damage for up to a minute, and the latter gives a creature extra combat awareness, boosting their AC for up to 10 minutes.

You can also prepare spells outside your domain; healing spells are an obvious choice, but you should also check out Detect Poison and Disease and Purify food and Drink to make sure you have some antidotes on you.

Finally, you also get cantrips. Guidance adds 1d4 to an ability score, so long as they follow your directions for fluids and bedrest. Mending puts two things back together (it’s intended for nonliving things, but I’m sure it works fine on limbs too). Spare the Dying is what you’re actually supposed to use when people’s limbs come off, stabilizing creatures at 0 hp so they don’t have to worry about death saves.

2. Cleric 2: Second level clerics can Channel Divinity, either Turning Undead to make those that fail a wisdom save of DC 8 plus your wisdom modifier plus your proficiency, or making a Guided Strike, adding 10 to your attack roll. Some times the most effective way to end a disease is to end the person it’s afflicting.

3. Cleric 3: At third level you get second level spells, like Magic Weapon and Spiritual Weapon. Despite the similar names, the former improves your existing weapon a bit and makes it magical to avoid resistances, and the latter makes a brand new weapon that you control as a bonus action each turn. Along with your domain spells, you also get the performance enhancing drug Enhance Ability, the tranquilizer Hold Person, and more Protection from Poison.

4. Cleric 4: Use your first Ability Score Improvement to become a Healer. Now when you stabilize a creature using a healer’s kit they regain 1 HP, and you can spend a use of a healers kit to heal a creature for 1d6+4 HP, plus an extra amount of HP equal to their maximum number of hit dice. This healing can only be done once per short rest for each creature. Doctors gonna doctor.

Also grab Thaumaturgy so your Angel’s Yell can carry further.

5. Fighter 1: Bouncing over to fighter gives you a fighting style, like Unarmed Fighting, which gives you unarmed attacks that deal bludgeoning damage, but more so if you’re not holding your crossbow at the same time. Guns are nice, but sometimes you’ll have to get physical. You also gain a Second Wind, letting you heal yourself as a bonus action. This means you can save your regular materials for your party members.

6. Fighter 2: Second level fighters get an Action Surge, making it a lot easier to heal and shoot people at the same time once per short rest by adding an extra action to your turn.

7. Fighter 3: Grab the Banneret as your subclass to gain a Rallying Cry. Now using your Second Wind also heals your party members for a little bit as well! It’s not much compared to healing spells, but sometimes you run out of slots.

8. Cleric 5: Back in cleric now, your Turn Undead becomes Destroy Undead, instantly killing any undead monsters with a CR of less than 1/2 when they fail their save. You also get third level spells like Crusader’s Mantle and Spirit Guardians. The former causes everyone’s guns to run hot with radiant damage even if they’re using a sword, and the latter summons a couple angelic guards to protect your patients. If you find yourself in a lot of close-quarters combat, you can also use Spirit Shroud for some extra enemy control and damage.

9. Cleric 6: At sixth level you can Channel Divinity twice per short rest, and gain an new option to do so. You can bestow your War God’s Blessing on nearby creatures, spending your reaction to add 10 to their attack roll.

10 Cleric 7: Seventh level clerics get fourth level spells, like your domain spells Freedom of Movement and Stoneskin. The former helps you gnaw off your arm like a rabid coyote to escape capture, and the latter gives you all the relevant benefits of raging without stopping you from casting spells. By that, I mean it gives a creature resistance to nonmagical physical damage types. But you’ll have plenty of competition for your concentration, because you can also cast Aura of Life and Aura of Purity this level. One gives creatures in it resistance to necrotic damage and instantly revives non-hostile creatures who’ve been downed, and the other prevents diseases, weakens poisons, and empowers your party against most status effects.

11. Cleric 8: At this level, you can finally use an ASI to improve an ability score, bumping up your Wisdom for better healing and more bonus action attacks. Your Destroy Undead also bumps up to CR 1, and your Divine Strike makes your weapon attacks a little stronger once per turn. Turns out guns are stronger than crossbows, who knew?

12. Cleric 9: Ninth level clerics get fifth level spells. Flame Strike can be one of those neat little bottle-shaped grenades, and you also get Hold Monster for an even stronger tranquilizer. Beyond that and some healing spells, there isn’t really much at fifth level that screams Nightingale to me, but feel free to play it by ear.

13. Cleric 10: At tenth level you can use Divine Intervention to ask God for a bit of assistance in keeping your dumbass party alive. You can use this once per long rest, but also have to wait a week after it succeeds. Since you’re a full level of spells behind regular spellcasters right now, calling in a favor from time to time might come in handy.

You also pick up your last cantrip; Toll the Dead is another solid way to finish off diseased or injured enemies before they can spread whatever’s affecting them to the party, dealing more damage to creatures who are missing HP.

14. Cleric 11: Eleventh level clerics get sixth level spells, and like last time there’s not much specifically at this level that caught my eye. But that’s only if you’re playing the character religiously close to canon, and you probably shouldn’t be if you want to jive with the rest of the party. Or maybe you’re all playing expies of other characters, idk live your life.

15. Cleric 12: Use this ASI to bump up your Dexterity for better gunplay and AC.

16. Cleric 13: Now you have seventh level spells, and unlike the last few levels, there’s spell outside of your usual healing you might want to check out. Temple of the Gods. lets you build your own temple within a cube of 120′. It lasts 24 hours per cast, but casting it once per day for a year in the same spot makes it permanent. Inside the temple, extraplanar entities can be kept out of it if they fail a charisma save, and they also get 1d4 subtracted from their attacks, checks, and saves while inside. The temple is immune to divinations spells, and the temple also boosts the power of healing spells cast inside of it. Great for giving your keep it’s own medical wing.

17. Cleric 14: Fourteenth level clerics have a Destroy Undead that affects creatures of CR 3 or lower, and their Divine Strike becomes a little more powerful as well. You just learned how to build hospitals from nothing, not every level can be a massive leap forward.

18. Cleric 15: You pick up eighth level spells this level. By this level, most spells are a bit too flashy to fit into Nightingale’s toolkit, but Holy Aura still manages to do it. Creatures within 30′ of you glow, and get advantage on all saves. On top of that, attacking creatures have disadvantage, and fiends and undead have to make a constitution save or become blinded for the duration of the spell.

19. Cleric 16: Use your last ASI to bump up your Constitution for more HP and better concentration saves.

20. Cleric 17: At seventeenth level, your Destroy Undead gets even stronger, you get ninth level spells, and most importantly, you become an Avatar of Battle, granting you a permanent resistance to nonmagical weapons. Effectively, you’re always raging, but still have access to your spells.

Pros:

You’re something of a tough nut to crack, especially for a healer. You’ve got quite a bit of health for a cleric, ways to heal yourself and the party at the same time, and a sort of permanent rage damage resistance going on at the end of it.

Despite being a healer, you’re also pretty skilled in ranged combat, with plenty of ways to add more damage to your crossbow bolts. You might not have multiple attacks like most fighters, but you make your shots count. This also means you don’t have to be quite as deep in combat as your standard “mace and shield” cleric.

The healer feat and your Rallying Cry give you access to nonmagical healing. This is most likely to be a niche skill, but sometimes you’ll have to deal with anti-magic zones or low-magic settings, in which case you’ll still be able to shine.

Cons:

Despite us putting several levels and feats into making your crossbow good, you’ll still always have to deal with the fact that it’s nowhere near as strong as a fighter’s would be. It’s fine for emergencies, but you probably won’t be the standout damage dealer of the group.

Bumping over to fighter for a couple levels also prevents you from getting the Cleric capstone, and they have a really good one. Guaranteed divine intervention is nothing to sneeze at.

You don’t really wear armor, and you don’t get anything like monks or barbarians do to offset that fact, so if you’re playing to character your AC is abysmal. Like I said earlier though, feel free to put on a breastplate or something, there’s no wrong way to play D&D. Except for in person, and not wearing a mask.

[pixelgrotto]

Night City, I barely remember ya

I beat Cyberpunk 2077 last month, and honestly, I haven’t thought about Cyberpunk 2077 that much since.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. CD Projekt Red’s follow-up to The Witcher 3 was meant to be the sort of game that would stick in your mind after completion. It was promoted over eight years of hype stemming from its initial 2013 reveal as a example of CD Projekt’s infamous “vodka and Slavic magic” - a behemoth destined to change open world RPGs forever. But in the roughly 12 weeks since its release, the stuff that’s happened to Cyberpunk 2077, including its delisting from the Playstation store for being chock full of bugs and the theft of its source code by hackers, has been more cyberpunk than the actual game.

I was one of those people super hyped for this game when it was first announced. I mean, the Witcher franchise left an indelible impression on me; how could I not be psyched to see its devs tackle one of my favorite sci-fi genres? But my hype deflated over the years, largely due to tales of terrible crunch emerging from CD Projekt’s studios and social media marketing that was ill-advised at best and transphobic at worst. Everything seemed to slowly hint that the game’s vision of “cyberpunk” - a genre that can tell incredible futuristic tales of social upheaval and marginalized peoples - would be mostly style with not so much substance.

Despite me keeping my fingers crossed, the end product is pretty much what I feared - and I guess I should’ve known, since the official sourcebook for Cyberpunk 2020, the tabletop RPG that CD Projekt Red used as inspiration, actually lists “style over substance” as one of its rules.

Cyberpunk 2077’s main story revolves around a merc who dreams of big time heists in Night City named V. After a heist goes south, V ends up absorbing a biochip made by big bad corporation Arasaka that features the captured personality of rockstar-turned-terrorist Johnny Silverhand, played by Keanu Reeves - who, to be fair, does a good job with the material he’s given. Cue a bunch of quests that revolve around V and Johnny coming to terms with each other, taking down Arasaka and figuring out how to separate the chip from V’s brain.

In theory, this sounds like a cool way to explore the very cyberpunk themes of identity and what it means to have a corrupt company preserve a human soul beyond its organic shell. In reality, though, the story’s a surface level examination of these concepts, and Johnny Silverhand remains a massive dick throughout most of the game, only becoming relatable if players give him the benefit of the doubt - which they’re expected to do because he’s played by Keanu Reeves.

Johnny’s animosity towards Arasaka is also never completely outlined. He - and most other characters in Night City - keep telling V that corporations are awful because they disregard human rights and destroy the environment, but we never get many chances to see for ourselves how Arasaka and similar companies, like Militech or Kang Tao, actually do this. Arasaka does kidnap Johnny’s ex-girlfriend and is behind the tech that transfers his soul to a biochip, yes, but Johnny also threatens to destroy them at all of his shows and eventually sets off a bomb in their headquarters. Not that I’m siding with the corporation, but for much of the game we’re expected to treat them as the number one enemy simply because other characters say so, which is very much a “show, don’t tell” missed opportunity. If anything, Arasaka’s portrayal feels more like a vestige of the cyberpunk genre’s unfortunate maturation during the 1980s, where the fear of Japanese conglomerates taking over the world was common and a future where Asian companies were all-powerful instead of Western ones seemed like a dystopia.

Cyberpunk 2077 is very much caught in that yesteryear mold, featuring elements that might have been progressive in the 1980s but seem passé now. For a game that relied on questionable representation of trans people in its marketing, there were no notable trans NPCs that I came across, and even though there’s a robust character creation system where you actually can make a trans person, the game makes the troubling decision to only offer binary pronouns tied to V’s voice. Despite the fact that many of the best modern cyperbunk works deal with body augmentation and the line between man and machine, most of the physical modifications you can pay for at Night City’s “ripperdoc” facilities are niche features that only offer minimal stat boosts, with only two major ones that I know of - the mantis blades and gorilla arms - actually causing extensive changes to V’s looks. And finally, while there are tons of characters of color in the game, ranging from the Haitian Voodoo Boys gang to V’s “friendly ethnic friend™” Jackie Welles, most of them are varying degrees of stereotypical. For instance, Goro Takemura, an ex-Arasaka employee, sends you text messages reminiscent of haiku at one point because he’s Japanese and has to talk like a formal, honorable samurai or something.

If you’re able to look past these issues - along with the myriad of bugs that Cyberpunk 2077 shipped with - there’s still the niggling feeling that this game could have been so much more. The signs of a troubled development process are numerous, and there are Reddit threads packed with still-visible remnants - like useless combat skill perks and an entire metro system - that were part of gameplay elements gutted at some point in order for those overworked CD Projekt Red programmers to make a long-delayed release date. Even mainstay stuff in the open world genre - like the police chases common in the Grand Theft Autos - are absent, and Cyberpunk 2077’s 2018 demo, chock full of promised features that never made it into the final product, has to be one of the most notorious bits of smoke ‘n mirrors “gameplay” in recent memory.

Perhaps most bothersome is the feeling that a lot of your choices don’t seem to matter all that much in Cyberpunk 2077, which once touted itself as “a full-fledged RPG, not a shooter with RPG elements,” but ends up feeling more like the latter than the former. The game’s three different lifepaths - nomad, streetkid and corpo - only amount to about thirty minutes of unique playtime at the start and a few different dialogue options. The vehicle combat sequences that punctuate key missions are largely scripted, looking cool but offering little consequences depending on what V aims at. The side quests I encountered had minimal branching paths, and the only time the main story opened up to offer some real choice was in the game’s final chapter. Considering that CD Projekt once developed The Witcher 2 - a 2011 game that branches dramatically at its halfway mark to the point where a lot of folks insist that you need to play it twice in order to feel satisfied - Cyberpunk 2077 feels like a step back.

And yet, despite all of these criticisms, I still put nearly 80 hours into the game over the course of December, January and February. You don’t do that for something that’s patently unfun, so let me be clear - there is an entertaining experience buried beneath an avalanche of unfulfilled potential here. Driving on my Akira-esque bike through Night City’s slums as the game’s best song bumped on the radio, taking out legions of baddies with my mantis blades and relishing in the game’s extensive photo mode (as you can probably tell by my screenshots above) was a good time. In spite of his assholery, I did feel something akin to attachment for that bastard Johnny Silverhand by the finale, and there were a few key moments - like when I was scuba diving in the ocean with my girlfriend Judy, looking at the remains of a town destroyed by the land seizing machinations of corporations - that felt like this game had something to say beyond “bang bang gunplay and neon aesthetic.”

But at the end of the day, while I do feel moderately interested in someday checking out Cyberpunk Red (the newest iteration of this franchise’s tabletop RPG), CD Projekt’s seven-year-hyped-up behemoth has largely faded from my brain one month after beating it. On Twitter, I’ve seen Cyberpunk 2077 described as something akin to a flashy Netflix series with lots of fanfare and flair but not much else - and I can’t really argue with that statement.

Night City was supposed to be the stuff of a long-term relationship. Instead, it feels more like a fling.

[livefordrama]

Reviewing Dramas I Have Watched Part 8

Again, here is my rating system:  1- Did not like, 2- Enjoyed but probably wouldn’t watch again, 3- Enjoyed and would watch some episodes again/may watch again, 4- Enjoyed and would watch again, 5- Loved 

Korean Drama

My Strange Hero: 4

Trigger Warning: Suicide, Bullying, Verbal and Emotional Abuse

My Strange Hero is about a man named Bok-su (which stands for revenge), who was falsely accused by his friend and girl friend of shoving his friend off the school roof and expelled from high school. Now nine years later, he gets the opportunity to return to school but he isn’t just going to go back nicely, seeing the seemingly cozy lives those who betrayed him are living he decides to enact his revenge by proving how corrupt the high school and the people working in it are. However, his plans for revenge get more difficult to achieve when he begins to fall for his ex-girlfriend once again. 

This show was cute and interesting, it made me mad and lot and Yoo Seung-ho never disappoints. I ended up watching it in less than a week with studying and all so it draws you in really fast. I absolutely loved the realistic factor of not having to forgive everyone for a good ending and to move on. Many shows, kdrama or otherwise, make characters forgive even those who did horrible things to them just for a good ending, and it’s not always that simple nor do you owe those who did horrible things to you an apology to be a good person and move on looking at you Missing Nine. However my main complaint with it is that the ending isn’t as impactful or satisfying as the ending three episodes previous. I’m glad they had the three ending episodes because the other characters got more closure, I just wish they would have made it as impactful as the ending of episode 29. It is about thirty minutes an episode so it’s a really fun and interesting watch if you need something on the shorter side. I highly recommend!

Love Alarm (Season 1): 3 

Trigger Warning: Bullying, Suicide, PTSD, Anxiety, Panic Attacks, Abuse 

Love Alarm deals with the concept of having an app that can read your emotions and alerts your phone when you are in 10 meters of someone who loves you or alerts your crushes phone if they are within the 10 meters. It follows Jojo, a girl with a mysterious and sad past, who can’t download Love Alarm because of her phone. She is in an unhappy relationship and begins to have feelings for the new student. After being kind to a student, he gives her the phone and she can finally download it only to find that love is a lot more complicated than she originally expected. 

Okay, I started this show because the new season was coming out and everyone was freaking out about it. I had been avoiding it all this time because I love Song Kang and have been following his work since his smaller roles, hoping he would get bigger roles. I was so excited when I first heard he would be the main here but couldn’t ever bring myself to watch it cause I don’t like romance love triangles and already knew he was playing the webtoon second lead which made it worse. Plus I have a trauma with anything that has Kim So-Hyun in it. I adore her acting, she is so good, too good. She just always plays in really sad, dark Kdramas and I always like the second leads in her shows so I just get sad and angry when I watch her shows. I at the time just didn’t feel like dealing with being annoyed and finally got in the mood to watch a cheesy love triangle romance. *spoiler alert* I can confidentially say that while no character and no ship is necessarily healthy, I do prefer Sun-ho to Hye-yeong. No, not because he is played by Song Kang, in the first few episodes I hated his character. I wanted to punch him so badly, but with all his immature flaws he did do some mature things. He told Hye-yeong to not fight over Jojo and to let her pick which I loved because, shows like to have the two people fight amongst themselves who gets the crush and that’s so stupid to me, Jojo is a person with feelings too and she might not like either so I loved that he said that. I also loved that instead of telling Hye-yeong not to pursue Jojo because he still loved her, he told Jojo to stay away from Hye-yeong so that he wouldn’t be hurt by her like Sun-ho was. He still loved her but his friend came first, and I felt horrible when he lost almost everyone who genuinely loved him. Hye-yeong is okay, but he isn’t even a healthier option, he literally stalks her all the time without her even knowing about it, he memorized her daily routine, where he’s going to college so he could move there to be around her, it’s just too creepy to me. Yes, Sun-oh stalked her too and that is not okay at all, but he made his presence known so that she can voice if she was uncomfortable or knew to call someone if she felt threatened, Hye-yeong sneaks around and doesn’t even talk to her and that’s super creepy to me. I just think they are both immature and personally with some growth I think Sun-oh is more fitting than Hye-yeong cause the two really do seem like they are in love with each other while Jojo and Hye-yeong seem like a crush that will turn out to be more platonic. I know it’s wishful thinking but that’s just my hopes. *spoiler over* I did really love this show actually, sometimes you just need a trashy dramatic romance. Yes, it had toxic behaviors but I still liked it, it felt like a realistic teenage couple in high school (minus Mr. Stalkery Stalks.) I think that not everything has to be analyzed, I enjoyed the cute romantic scenes at face value, even though I knew they weren’t healthy. If it happened to me in real life, I would have punched a bitch but it’s fun to watch on a screen. 

Blood: 2

Trigger Warnings: Blood, Suicide, Terminal illness, Murder, Abuse. 

Blood is about a surgeon who is also a vampire. He tries to control his vampire self and help humans while working on a way to make himself human. When he transfers to a new hospital things take a turn for the weird as the patients of the new ward start exhibiting symptoms he is all too familiar with. 

Blood was really good for the first two thirds of the series. I watched it before I found out about the main couples real life situation but continued to enjoy it because it’s none of my business what they do in their personal lives (so please don’t message or leave comments about that situation or your opinions on it.) Both couples were super cute and there were some plot twists that admittedly got me. I liked the story line and the idea that vampires were viruses that doctors were researching in secret. I really got hooked for most of the story; however, the last few episodes felt almost like they switched writers and the new writer had never watched the previous episodes. Comments were made that never were brought up again, like the thirty minutes of vaguely discussing his parents and who he was as an infectee that was never even slightly brushed upon for the rest of the episodes let alone resolved. Not to mention that last episode was a total mess and the ending sucked. The last two episodes are not canon in my mind that’s how weirdly out of place for the show they felt, it was like a 180. The ending was so confusing and I just really hated how it all played out. Because of this, I give the show a 2 cause I did enjoy it a lot but I won’t watch it again. Once of that was enough. 

Legend Hero: 4

Legend Hero, also known as Legend Hero Samgugjeon or Legends Heroes the Three Kingdoms, is about people who compete in a dream battle to acquire their ultimate dream. The main character acquired three spirit helpers which help him in combat by transforming him into an armored knight with special power, and later befriends angels who help him in the battles by boosting this power. He has to fight friend and foe alike to achieve his ultimate dream but that begs the question, is a dream really worth it?

I really enjoyed this show, it was admittedly difficult to get into at first but once I did, I was hooked. The characters were so cute and endearing, the plot had humor, angst, and fluff alike. The acting was a little silly at points but it was made for kids so it’s a little overdramatic. It was all around a very entertaining watch, I watched the whole series while on vacation during the resting hours when my family and I were lazing around the hotel and it was such a refreshing, happy, lazy watch. I highly recommend for those who enjoy a happy watch when they just wish to relax.

Web-Drama/Mini-Series

Power Rangers Dino Force Brave: 4

Power Rangers Dino Force Brave, while technically a sequel to the super sentai series, is a original stand alone production and sSouth Korean take on the power rangers series. While the power rangers finally enjoy the peace that had come to the earth, a new threat is brewing. The Neo-Deboth Army has arrived looking for the power of the dinosaur king, the power ranger once more have to come together to defeat this threat.

This show was super interesting and cute. I have never seen any of the power ranger series so I am entirely inexperienced when it comes to their world. However, I can confidentially say this is a good stand alone as I was not confused while watching it. The first episode got recommended to me on youtube and since I was bored and unsure of what to do, I decided to watch it. I believe I finished the whole series in only a few days. It was super cute and I liked how ironic and silly the ending was with all the characters, including the evil ones dancing together. I’m sure die hard power rangers fans hated that but as someone who knows nothing about the series, I found it quite hilarious. The plot itself was entertaining and cool, it had some angst moments and some cute moments. I loved the ending, but that’s all I will say about that. 

Founder of Diabolism Q: 3

Founder of Diabolism Q is simply snippets of cute or funny scenes from the book that didn’t make it into the series or at least not in as much detail. It follows many characters in small, five minute long episodes and the shenanigans they get in to. 

Founder of Diabolism Q was super cute! I have watched The Untamed and read some of the book but haven’t watch the actual anime yet. Still, I decided to watch this short series. I watched each episode as it came out and loved every one. There isn’t much to say on it though, other than it was super cute and if you love The Untamed or its adaptions, I highly recommend. Just make sure you watch or read one of the full adaptions first otherwise you will be very confused. 

Imaginary Cat: 4

Trigger Warning: Depression, Suicide, Vomit, Illness, Death

Imaginary Cat is about an aspiring webtoon artist who, after loosing his crush and falling into a depression, finds a cat in an alley and takes her in. He is able to recover from the loss and get back into writing when he meets a girl who is obsessed with cats especially after she lost her kitten as a child. He is just trying to get his webtoon accepted and she just wants to get close to him and his cat. 

This was such a cute little easy watch, but was really sad at some points throughout the series. I teared up through some scenes and laughed so hard through others. I also related a lot to how the main plays with his cat, especially when said cat wants none of it. It was a really nice mini-drama to watch in the very little time I had between studying and moving house. I thoroughly enjoyed it and would highly recommend to those who want a easy watch that’s a little sad and very cute. 

Korean Movies

The Magician: 4

Trigger Warning: Blood, Abuse, Drugs, Suicide Attempt, Murder, Death

The Magician is set in the Joseon Era and follows the famous magician, Hwan-hee. He along with his blind friend Bo-eum ran away from their abusive caretaker as children and are still worrying about being found by him even to this day as they perform to keep their livelihoods. Meanwhile a noble lady who was sold to the Qing dynasty comes to town. The two end up running into each other and quickly fall in love, however they both have to overcome the obstacles in their way in order to be together. 

I loved this movie, I had to pause a few times just to process how much I personally enjoyed it. I wish I was able to watch it in a better quality because I never once saw how his one eye was blue, I just took their word and the movie poster for it. Unfortunately, it was the only place I could find to watch so I took what I could. The only reason I am giving it a four instead of a five is the ending sucked. I hated the ending. It just felt unnecessary and honestly really pissed me off. I don’t always need a happy ending but I also didn’t need that kind of ending either. I would still recommend it to those who like angst with some romance and a open-ish ending. 

Seondal The Man Who Sells the River: 5

Trigger Warnings: Blood, Death, Vomit, Gore

Seondal is supposedly a comedy about a group of swindlers who become fast family after escaping from a war they were drafted in. They work together to swindle their way into riches and out of dangerous situations. They gained a huge name in the Joseon dynasty for even swindling the king. However, after tragedy strikes, they decide to do their greatest job yet, sell a river of fake gold. 

The movie was really good, both funny and heartbreaking. My friend and I watched it together thinking it would be a nice comedy after we watched some sad kdrama earlier that week however, it was most certainly not. We both ended up crying and raging. So just be warned it claims to be a comedy and it is hilarious for the first half of the movie, however it quickly turns dark so fast you are just sitting their in shock wondering what happened. I thought Xiumin’s acting was great and his character was adorable. I had not seen his acting before and he easily became a favorite. The movie’s plot and writing kept you engaged and entertained throughout and the ending was great in my opinion. Overall it was a really good watch, I have seen it twice now and thoroughly enjoyed it. I highly recommend to those who enjoy both comedy and angst.

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[the-wlw-cafe]

Craving Comfort   (A supercorp fic)

This is my secret santa gift for @super66legends87​! Now I do realize that I might have messed up a bit here, when I went through your blog and found that you like supercorp, i decided to turn this into a supercorp Story, but now that the Holidays are rolling around every secret santa fic i see is a Reader insert, so that ´s a whoopsie. If you’d rather have a Reader insert Story, I totally understand and I’ll write another one for you ^^

anyway, thanks to @oneofakindimagines​ for letting me participate!

Some days were harder than others. Some days Lena just wanted to down decanter after decanter of scotch until the world around her started to fade into a dull haze. Were it not for Kara, she would absolutely already have drunken herself into a stupor.

Before, Lena would always ask herself how Kara always seemed to know when she needed her best friend, which sixth sense told her that Lena was about to do something stupid, about to indulge in her coping mechanisms she damn well knew were unhealthy, but didn’t have the strength to leave behind. But that was before. Before Lex revealed Kara’s secret with his dying breath, before the all the anger, the hurt, the resentment, and the months and months of bitter loneliness whose memory alone made Lena want to curl in on herself and cry. They were fine now, different, but fine, and yet a sore scar remained, a deep cut only recently healed. The months of radio silence had almost been too much to bear for Lena. She didn’t know how she would survive another rift like this.

But know she knew. She knew how Kara responded to every minute change of her heartbeat, because she had told her time and time again that it was her favourite sound in the world, because she used it to ground herself when everything would become too overwhelming. She knew how Kara could hear every half-choked sob she couldn’t contain after she would lock her office doors and tell Jess to send everyone away, because after so many assassination attempts Kara couldn’t fight the habit to check in on Lena every so often. She knew that Kara would be there in literal seconds, and all she had to say was...

“Kara.”

It still came difficult for her, openly asking for help like that, when every single one of her Luthor instincts was telling her to lick her wounds where nobody could see her, where nobody could ever bear witness to her shameful weakness. But some days were harder than others. Some days she just needed Kara.

She heard the quiet tap on her balcony door before she could start to second-guess herself. She opened it quickly and let Kara puller her into her arms like it was the most natural thing in the world. Kara had always been a very tactile person, but after their reconciliation the physical side of their friendship had intensified even more. It was as if they both needed physical confirmation that they were here, they were real, they were not going anywhere, a comfort that went beyond kind words and soft affirmations. A comfort that was a slippery slope to Lena, because the longer she allowed herself to be held by Kara, the more difficult it was to let her go again.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?”, Kara murmured into her hair, squeezing Lena tightly. The honest answer was no. No, Lena didn’t want to talk about it, she just wanted to forget. But what she wanted and what she should do were, as was the case so often, two very different things.

“Remember the important board meeting I told you about?”

“Of course I do,” Kara replied without a modicum of hesitation, as if it went without saying. Lena could feel her throat get tighter with the effort not to cry. A deep crinkle born of worry began to form between her best friend’s brows.

“Did something happen? You know, my offer to dig up dirt on every single one of these old chauvinists still stands, I bet not even half of them do their taxes...”

Despite herself, Lena could feel a smile playing around the corners of her mouth.

“It’s about Mr Whitman”, she says, and immediately Kara’s face lights up in recognition.

Mr Whitman was by far the oldest chairman of the board, he had watched the former Luthor Corp change hands from her father, to Lex, and finally to her, and through it all, he had never once doubted her. He was the good one, the one decent person among all these men still infatuated with Lex and his ideals, barely hiding their xenophobia and misogyny behind a facade of civility.

“What about him? Is he okay?”

Lena gritted her teeth. She didn’t want to recall their conversation, but she knows she’ll feel better afterwards. She always felt lighter after crying in Kara’s arms, which was a worrying development to say the least. Any kind of attachment this profound made her feel queasy, because she knew it was just going to spiral from there, like it had countless times before, in boarding school, in Metropolis...in the end, she always got too attached too quickly, and in the end it got her nothing but ridicule and isolation.

“After the meeting, he came to congratulate me. He told me that he envied my patience, that it was a skill Lex never possessed.” She can see Kara opening her mouth, doubtlessly to say something along the lines of he’s right and I’m so proud of you, so she quickly presses out the rest of the sentence from behind clenched teeth.

“He said he knew it can’t be easy to uphold that mask of a politically correct do-gooder until all the damage Lex did with his ill-advised actions has been undone.”

“Oh, Lena...” Kara sighed, and fuck, Lena could feel hot tears spilling onto her cheeks now.

“And I realized it would never be enough. No matter what I do, no matter how many lives I save, I’ll always be indistinguishable from them...”

Her voice tapered off into sobs, and the silence that ensued stretched long enough for Lena to worry if she’d done it now, if she’d been too clingy, too emotional.

But then, she felt it: The gentle press of Kara’s lips to her forehead so softly it was barely more than a whisper of a touch. It still made her gasp out loud, and even through her anguish she felt a warmth spread through her entire being that has nothing to do with Kara’s heightened body temperature. It had been so long since she’d felt a tender gesture like that, the last time being a hazy memory of her mother, her real mother, trading spoonfuls of peas for kisses when she was barely more than three years old and a very fussy eater.

It was beautiful, it was peaceful, and it was over far too soon. Lena could just so keep from stopping Kara when she pulled back, holding Lena at an arm’s length so she could look her in the eyes.

“Lena, you are nothing like them”, she states firmly. “You are nothing like them, and nothing like the person they want you to be. You are infinitely better, infinitely stronger than they could ever imagine.”

Lena sniffed, and nodded.

“You’re good, Lena. Can you repeat that for me?”

Deep breath in. Deep breath out.

“I’m good”, Lena said, with barely any tremble in her voice, her fingers absently touching the spot where she still felt the echo of Kara’s lips.

  In the days following, Lena could barely think of anything but the kiss. It was almost a welcome respite, because in the moments her brain was not occupied it seemed hell bent on reminding her of every conversation she’d ever shared with Mr Whitman, fond memories with somebody she’d almost considered a friend that had become poisoned now that he had shown his true colours. She trudged through the days, fuelled only by Kara’s frequent texts of either gentle encouragements or pictures of whatever animals she’d met on the streets that day. And the texts did make her forget about her miserable situation for a second or two, but in the end, they just reminded Lena of what she needed most: She needed Kara, she needed her to be there for her, to hold her, to tell her she wasn’t inherently wicked, to...to kiss her forehead again.

But she couldn’t ask that of her. She wouldn’t even know how. For a woman who prided herself in her ability to outsmart and outtalk any adversary in the boardroom, she didn’t have the words. It was probably for the best anyway. Asking for a forehead kiss from her best friend would definitely be weird. Crossing boundaries. Being clingy. Dependant. Overly physical. Manipulative. Predatory.

 So she didn’t bring it up, she just smiled, rested her head on Kara’s shoulders during movie night with her heart almost beating out of her chest and her palms damp from anxiety, and yearned in silence.

 She held out for two weeks. Now that she knew what Kara’s lips felt like when pressed to her forehead, she could not focus on anything else. It was a wonder, really, that it took so long for her to make a complete fool of herself in front of Kara. But here she was, completely enveloped in a shocked, painfully awkward silence, having just asked her best friend to kiss her.

She hadn’t meant for it to sound like that. She hadn’t meant to say it at all. The only excuse she could find was the fact that she’d been running on nothing but caffeine and spite for days now, she was frustrated with her company and most of all herself, and really, could she really be counted as fully accountable of her actions in her addled state of mind? But the why wasn’t important. The only thing that mattered now was how on earth Lena could salvage their friendship now. Because she’d been stressed, she’d been moments away from crying again, and Kara had been so kind to her, hugged her like she always did when she thought Lena needed a “serotonin boost”, and Lena had just craved the comfort so much she hadn’t been able to stop herself from blurting out the words “Kiss me?”.

And of course, shocked silence had been the answer. And Lena contemplated throwing herself out of the nearest window.

“Kara, I’m so sorry, I don’t know what I was thi-”

She didn’t get any further than that, because the feeling of Kara’s lips pressed gently against hers effectively shut her up. There was maybe half a second of uncertainty, half a second of questioning if she was really exhausted and crushing hard enough to hallucinate Kara kissing her, but then she could feel Kara’s hand tangling with her hair, playing with the strands, and Lena felt herself lean into the kiss, reciprocating with the same dreamy reverence Kara showed through her touch.

When they finally broke apart, it was with a soft sigh, and for the life of her Lena couldn’t figure out from whom it had come. She felt airy, light-hearted and most decidedly light-brained. Which might explain why the next words exiting her mouth were:

“I was asking for a forehead kiss.”

She could see the dreamy smile immediately fading from Kara’s expression, and Lena instantly felt heartbroken for being the cause of it.

“Oh Rao, Lena, I’m sorry...” Kara scrambled to explain, but Lena was quick to interrupt her by placing a single finger on her best friend’s lips. Kara fell silent immediately, as if Lena had stolen the words right off of her tongue.

“I’m not complaining,” she whispered, slowly moving closer to Kara as if approaching a frightened animal. “In fact, when taking into account that it took me two weeks and a worrying amount of sleep deprivation to work up the courage to ask for a forehead kiss, I don’t think I’d ever be brave enough to ask for this.”

She watched with undisguised affection as Kara’s lips opened in a surprised oh and her eyes went wide.

“Kara?” she said, chuckling softly as her best friend nodded slowly, as if caught in a trance.

“Kiss me again.”

[leahxx129]

Feels Like Home: Vengeance (pt.4) (Hvitserk x Reader)

Final part comes next week (probably sometime during the weekend). I am having difficulties writing it, but hopefully it won’t suck. Anyways, please enjoy this chapter! :)

Summary for pt.4: After the knockout you wake up in a seemingly foreign place but as your memories start flooding back, fury takes over you and you can’t resist the urge to seek vengeance any longer. 

Warnings: cursing, graphic description of multiple homicides

Word count: 1.512-ish

Read PART 1 , PART 2 , PART 3.

You wake up to the scent of wildflowers and when you open your eyes, you realize you are in a meadow and Hvitserk is laying on top of you. His smile is beaming brighter than a thousand suns and you feel yourself falling in love with him all over again.

Is this a dream? Or a memory? You think it’s both.

“You have never looked more beautiful than now, min elskede!” he whispers, completely enthralled by you.

You raise an eyebrow at him.

“Haven’t your father taught you that it is not decent to lie, my Prince?”

“He has and it is not a lie! You truly look mesmerizing! Are you questioning my honesty?”

Not waiting for the reply, he leans in and starts biting down your neck playfully, making you giggle in the process.

“Stop, please! Stop! I cannot breathe!” you muster in-between giggles and a couple of bites later he leans away.

“You have my heart, Hvitserk Ragnarsson! Promise you will take good care of it?”

He places a gentle kiss on your lips.

“I promise!”

“Good!” you reply and slowly start unbuttoning the top of your dress.

His eyes follow your movement hungrily.

You feel a hand shaking you.

“Nat? Nat! Wake up!” somebody whisper-shouts.

Hvitserk’s beautiful orbs stare into yours when your eyes finally flutter open. Concern distorts his handsome face.

“Are you okay?”

“Well, this pounding in my head is killing me, but other than that, yes, I am fine!” you answer, wanting to ease the new-come pain by pressing your palm against your temple, but the shackles on your wrists prevent you from doing so. “Where are we?”

“Besides the obvious answer that in a cell? I wish I knew.”

“Great!” you let out a frustrated sigh and begin taking a better look at your surroundings.

“Gods!” you utter unconsciously a minute later as you recognize the numerous small streaks carved into one corner of the cell.

“What is it?”

Ignoring the inquiry, you crawl there on all fours and trace the lines with your fingertips. You remember engraving them many-many years ago. Even some of your blood is still there... The king put you here to make you relive the memories that often haunted your dreams even nowadays…

“That fucking bastard!” you scream and smack your palm against the wall.

“Nat! I adore you but I will not ask again kindly – what is it?” Hvitserk warns with a hint of impatience in his tone.

You slowly rotate your head to his direction, trying your best to hold back tears.

“I know where we are. We’re in the castle’s prison tower.”

“How do you know this?”

“I told you I would answer every question once this is over, love.”

“Well, I am not so sure we will live long enough to see the end of it. The king is probably trying to set up a deal with Ivar and I know my brother… if the trade is our life in exchange for peace, he will not choose peace.”

You crawl to him and take his hands into yours.

“Do you trust me?”

“With my life!”

“Then believe when I say we will make it out alive, okay?”

He looks at you dead-serious but nods eventually. You squeeze his hands in reassurance.

“Now… do you know how may guards there are?”

“Two, I think.”

“Perfect!” you exclaim, then continue to map the plan “We will lure them into the cell then disarm them and take our leave!”

“And how exactly do you wish to do that?”

Instead of a verbal reply, you throw yourself to the ground and start shaking uncontrollably. A second later Hvitserk catches on and begins to yell in their language at the top of his lungs.

“Guards! Guards, come! The lady is ill, she may be dying! Guaaaaards!”

It’s not long before two men appear in front of the cell’s door.

“Oh, Lord! What is wrong with her?!” one questions with a heavy accent.

“Does it matter? King Willelmus commanded us to keep her alive regardless of anything and I do not wish to find out what happens if we fail to do so…” his partner answers him.

“Then come in and help her!” Hvitserk bellows at them and they flinch.

You hear keys turning and the cell door slowly opens up with a creaking sound. You sneak a glance at what’s happening and see a tall, helmetless man approach you. Alright. Here goes everything.

You stop shaking when he crouches down next to you, and in a blink of an eye, you hook your legs around his neck, cutting off his airways by pressing your thighs together as much as you can. Hvitserk almost simultaneously jumps up from his sitting position and headbutts the other guard unconscious.

The man in your stranglehold is gasping for air desperately and though you feel him getting weaker, you do not have the time to wait it out. You turn your hip in a swift motion and a loud crack echoes through the cell. In the meantime, he stops wiggling.

Hvitserk takes the keys from the guard he knocked out and frees both of you.

“Alright! Now take the other weapon and follow me!” you order as you pick up a sword, but he is not moving. “Is something wrong, my love?”

“No, nothing. It’s just that man is one lucky bastard.” he replies, staring at the corpse entranced.

You shoot him a puzzled expression, making him continue his train of thought.

“He died with a woman’s thighs around his neck. When my day comes, I wish to go the very same way.”

You roll your eyes at him.

“That day will be here sooner than you think if you don’t move, Hvit! Now, come! I know where the king is. All of this will be over if we kill him! Nobody will continue fighting for a dead leader whereas on the other hand, everybody will start fighting to take his place on the throne.”

You enter the castle’s tiny chapel silently and struggle to suppress a smile – King Willelmus is here alone, just as you anticipated. You press your index finger to your lips signing Hvitserk to stay still and quiet in the shadows. Every fiber in his body wants to protest, but the mad fire in your eyes convinces him and he nods in agreement. You approach the praying king soundlessly.

“Greetings Will!” you shout jovially in his language, making the man jump to his feet and turn around.

He was not a young man when you met him, and based on the wrinkles and grey hair, time did not serve him well since then.

“Nat… How did you find me? What is happening?” he stutters incredulously, dismay growing in his eyes.

“Well, you always were a coward, Will. You would hide here whenever your army fought your battles. I figured this time is not any different and I was right.”

You take a couple of steps closer to him, dragging the tip of your sword along the chapel benches, and he takes just as many away from you.

“And as for what’s happening… I don’t understand why you appear so surprised. I promised you I would be back and that I would personally drag your soul to the place you call ‘hell’, didn’t I?”

He starts receding but the space soon disappears, and his back is pressed flat against a statue.

“Whatever you plan to do, Nat, don’t! I am sure we can sit down like civilized people and discuss our differences…”

“You can’t tell me what to do, Will. At least not anymore… Besides, if my assessment skills are not failing me, I think I have the upper hand over here.“ you take a meaningful look at your weapon then at his empty hands. “So please keep your ridiculous suggestions to yourself.”

There’s a second of silence and you know he’s evaluating the situation, trying to find the best tactic to boost his chances at survival.

“I am sorry for everything I have ever done to you! Alright? I have realized the error of my ways and I truly apologize! This is what you wanted, is it not?”

Your lips curl into a cruel smile.

“Not quite. It’s a little too late for apologies, old man. Now kneel!” you scream the last part and he obeys reluctantly.

You push the sword’s blade against his throat and descend in front of him to be face to face.

“Do you remember what I told you I would do to you upon my return? Answer!”

“You said you would perform a blood eagle!” he whispers with a trembling voice.

“Yes, exactly. But there is no time for that now, unfortunately, so I’m settling on a quicker solution.” you caress his face with your free hand. “Helheim or hell… it doesn’t matter how you call it, in the end, it is all the same… Pass my kisses to father when you meet him there, would you?”

With a rapid movement you slash his throat open.

Read PART 5 (final part) HERE.

[hey-hamlet]

BNHA AU Ideas : Songbird

Also on AO3!

TL;DR: 

Izuku has a powerful quirk: he can give powers to the people around him based on the different songs he sings. Unfortunately, everyone else really wants that quirk and are willing to kidnap him to get it. 

Songbird is an au where Izuku has a quirk that gives a powerup/debuff to anyone that hears what he's singing! The effect depends on the song, or rather, what the song means to him.

He's been kidnapped a lot.

It came in when Izuku was like, 4? The normal time for a quirk to come in. Bakugo thought it was pretty cool, if not as cool as his.

Izuku's favourite powerup at the time was the Mario theme because it gives everyone a jump boost. So we have this little kid enthusiastically shouting the Mario theme as a small pile of kids jump around like maniacs.

Very stressful for all parents involved.

Anyway, the way his quirk works:

With some serious concentration, he can stop it working on specific people around him, but it always affects himself. Trying to limit it's spread for too long will make him pass out.

The shorter the song naturally is, the stronger the effect. His quirk works through speaker and coms but not through pre-recorded audio.

The effects can be really specific and strange, for example, 'Stronger Than You' gives a powerup to two people fighting together that care for each other. 'Radioactive', well, it literally irradiates the people around him and himself. 100% not a song he's allowed to sing.

Each song only works once per day, for the duration of the song. If accidentally, or intentionally, sings the song in a way that stops it from ending, the effect will slowly fade out.

the more a particular song has been used on you / the better you know the song, the better it works on you and the easier it is to control

Anyway, villains quickly get word of this kid running around with a powerful and versatile support quirk. Support quirks aren't super common, and one that works in so many different ways is super valuable. So, they start kidnapping the poor guy.

Obviously getting kidnapped is pretty traumatising for Izuku. It's not super great for Bakugo either, who watched his friend get stuffed into the back of a van by a small pile of villains. He gets saved by All Might. The two kids still have nightmares.

Eventually, he gets kidnapped so many random times each individual attempt is nothing to write home about. He and Bakugo become kind of blasé about the whole thing.

"Midoriya, why didn't you do your homework?"

"He got kidnapped, teach."

Izuku, bleeding sluggishly from a headwound. "Yeah, got kidnapped."

He and Bakugo are going to be heroes. They kind of end up the top dogs of the school, Izuku without meaning it, Bakugo 100% intending for that to happen. They train more than is probably healthy, because at this point it's not just good practise, it's in their best interest in an attempt to ward off more kidnappings.

Izuku has met All Might a depressing number of times, almost always getting saved from the kidnapping of the week. Bakugo is the only person Izuku lets see how all of these kidnappings are effecting him, everyone else just views it as kind of funny that this kid is so chill with getting taken so often.

He's really not, but heroes smile when they're scared, right?

Even if other villains fail, his quirk is just so useful its worth it to give it a go. He can turn a ragtag team of unfit losers into a force to rival pros with the right song choice. Plus, his involvement in all the kidnappings is suppressed for his own safety, so he's never on the news.

Oh yeah, the plan B for the USJ was take Izuku and run.

Aizawa knows about the kid that gets constantly kidnapped, but he doesn't know who it is. At the USJ, Shigiraki creepily calls out 'Hey Songbird!' and he has around 8 'oh shit' moments all at once. Izuku just wants to cry out of frustration.

The only reasons All for One hasn't stolen Izuku's quirk at this point is that All Might constantly rescuing the poor kid is both good entertainment and a good way to get him in one spot. Also he just finds this whole mess kind of funny.

His quirk only works when he's singing, but there is nothing stopping him from singing the tune to classical music! His quirk tends to work better with an instrumental or other people singing along. General power-ups are too risky to use with villains nearby, so it's mostly for disaster work.

None of his songs work on Nomu or people who can't hear (either by blocking their ears or being deaf)

Songbird Izuku kinda gives off a nice but chill air, a lot of people are afraid to talk to him because he's typically pretty popular. Inside he's just as, if not more, anxious than canon Izuku, he's just gotten pretty good at hiding it.

Regarding OFA, All Might considers giving it to him, but doesn't, mostly because he realised Izuku can't say no. It's not fair of him to ask something so big of someone who, because of the position he's been placed in, can't turn you down. He is pretty close with the Midoriya family though and comes over for dinner a lot.

The UA entrance exam is wild. Izuku kicks butt in the written, goes to thank Uraraka for helping him before but Iida stops him. Izukus externally like "Dude, you don't know me. Please calm down." internally he's like "I'M SORRY PLEASE DONT EVEN LOOK AT ME OR ILL DIE".

The announcement rings. He takes a deep breath and starts to sing, taking off after the other students.

First song up is 'Victorious'. It's both a confidence booster and a mild strength boost. He really just needs the confidence at this point. (In the distance, a purple-haired boy who was worried about the exam gets a pep in his step. He tries a little harder.)

Next up is 'Whatever it Takes', a strength and speed up based off the amount of adrenalin currently in your system. Izuku, who is constantly stressed, gets a big boost from this song. He ends up with around 28 villain points by the song, but punching robots with bare skin isn't good for your knuckles.

The 0 pointer appears and he's ready to just leave it behind until he sees the person trapped in its path. No matter how scared he is, no matter how badly he wants to go to UA, he can't leave her there.

He grits his teeth, and starts 'Get Back Up Again'. His quirk is honestly starting to run low, it's not meant to be used back to back to back like this. Still, 'Get Back Up Again' does it's job, temporarily powering up the quirks of those who can hear it. While he just wants it for Uraraka, so she can lift the rock off her legs, it works on him too.

The effects of the songs linger after they complete.

He helps Uraraka free herself from the rock and starts 'What's Up Danger'. Normally its not the strongest, but with the power up, the effects are impressive. The song itself grants luck and skill in equal measure. Normally it's hard to notice, but here it allows him to throw himself up the zero pointer until he reaches the fuse box, pulls out all of the important wires without getting zapped to high heaven, and somehow have stopped the robot in its tracks.

Unfortunately, songs end. His luck doesn't last long enough to give him a safe landing.

But Uraraka was watching him, and she can, stopping him just before he hits the ground. The buzzer goes off a second later and they collapse together, laughing hysterically and trying not to throw up everywhere. Everyone in the area looks a little shell shocked at what they just saw.

All Might looks on from with the other teachers and cheers for the boy he's seen grow from a scared kid to a determined young man. Aizawa is 100% confused and annoyed at this blatant favouritism.

He could write songs, but the catch is his quirk works with the emotions he has towards the song and his automatic reaction to it. There is a big chance that if he wrote them himself, each song would have the same effect as the other.

Please consider though, a classmate like Jirou writing him a song. That song would probably give a strong healing effect / widespread warm and fuzzy feelings.

A few fun ones:

Duel commandments from Hamilton should let you shoot air bullets

This is Halloween: i lowkey want it to be that people transform into their costumes, or something simple like it makes people glow like jack o lanterns

The Cha Cha Slide: its something he only does for fun, because it also forces him (and everyone else in the area) to do the cha cha slide

Thunder by imagine dragons electrifies everyone who hears it, so please consider a small swarm of zappy children

Upgrade from BMC gives your quirk an ‘upgrade’ or mutation. 

Hey Little Songbird from Hadestown causes earth to creep up the legs of anyone who hears it. It can’t be shaken off.

Deviltown by cavetown causes the temperature around to drop dramatically. Again, if you can’t hear the song, the temperature feels normal for you.

[chyrstis]

Hana/Sharky or Hana/John for the Ultimate Ship Meme?

@raisinghellinotherworlds

I’ve got Hana/Sharky here, so let’s give Hana and John some attention, especially since this next fic I’m working out should give them a lot more to work with. :D

--

Hana Vao / John Seed

General:

Rate the Ship -  

Awful | Ew | No pics  pls | I’m not comfortable | Alright | I like it! | Got Pics? | Let’s do  it! | Why is this not getting more attention?! | The OTP to rule all  other OTPs - I’m a bit quieter about this one due to wanting to develop it more, but it snuck up on me and I love it)

How long will they last? - There’s a hell of a lot that the two need to work through and work out, but once they do, they’re in it for the long-term.

How quickly did/will they fall in love? - It’s not love at first sight by any means of the word. John eyes her during the initial arrest, but is dismissive. Hana’s only set on looking at Joseph once his attention starts boring into her, and hardly registers that the other siblings are in the room. After that, and once Hana really starts laying into John’s operation, he’s infuriated and intrigued, and Hana’s all too glad for the opportunity to piss him off. But John does fall first, and it’s not too long after she tries to capture him that feelings start entering the mix. Hana’s much further off, but by the time John does start finding ways to ‘help’ her and they seem genuine, any feelings towards him start warming faster than anticipated. There’s a bit of a rift that forms before the two go underground, but over the next few years they’re able to repair it, and start a relationship on much more even footing.

How was their first kiss? - Their first is incredibly ill-advised. It’s during an attempt to capture him, and Hana’s injured and desperate and in the middle of grappling with John when a thought pops into her head. ‘Sharky said he’s into me. Maybe I can use it to weasel out of this? No big deal.’ So, she kisses him. Kisses him and goes, ‘Oh, shit, he’s actually pretty into this’, and then punches him in the dick right after. Their first real kiss is a different kind of desperate later on down the line, and luckily for John, doesn’t require any dick-punching. He does make sure she actually wants this before continuing, however, and once she does confirm that, proceeds to pour every feeling he’s tried burying into it.

Wedding:

Who proposed? - Hana! It’s honestly something that they never sat down to discuss officially, but she has no doubt in her mind that she wants to ask John once the idea’s been planted and she has a ring to do so.

Who is the best man/men? - There’s no ceremony for them, and considering John’s previous role (and the amends he’s trying to make), he would find it difficult to fill this position. Sharky would 100% try to volunteer, though and at that point would just be dragged into participating in the actual wedding himself, so....

Who is the braid’s maid(s)? - Hana would also find her hands a bit tied, and understandably so.

Who did the most planning? - Hana, though by planning it’s more ‘get John alone so she can talk to him’ and luckily for her manages to catch him working in his room. Then when she’s about to get the ring out, fumbles it, and has to dig it out from under his desk while he’s sitting by it. She doesn’t hesitate to propose once she gets her hands on the ring after that, and John’s honestly left speechless for a good minute once he realizes just what she’s doing.

Who stressed the most? - John. Up until that moment he’d drawn a few conclusions he shouldn’t have, and Hana’s glad to prove him wrong.

How fancy was the ceremony? -

Back of a pickup truck | 2 | 3 | 4 | Normal Church Wedding | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Kate and William wish they were this big. -

Who was specifically not invited to the wedding? - N/A - Technically no one was invited since there was no official ceremony, but I think it’s safe to say that Joseph’s invite would've been lost in the mail. Or set on fire by Sharky.

Sex:

Who is on top? - They do tend to switch, but there’s been plenty of times where Hana’s put John right on his back, and he’s hardly tried to stop her.

Who is the one to instigate things? - They’re both pretty awful teases. It’s entirely a game of how much extended eye contact they can hold across a room and during conversation before the other cracks or gets the hint. John also enjoys trying to see how much innocent innuendo he can come up with, while Hana goes for small touch after small touch, seeing how close she can get to him before trying to leave the room. If it’s in an isolated area, she usually doesn’t have the chance, but if not, John’s usually not far behind.

How healthy is their sex life? -

Barely  touch themselves let alone each other | 2 | 3 | 4 | Once a couple  weeks, nothing overboard | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | They are humping each other  on the couch right now - It would be a ten here, but their moments together are a bit more spaced out at the start of their relationship. Once they’re officially living together, though...

How kinky are they? -

Straight  missionary with the lights off | 2 | 3 | 4 | Might try some butt stuff  and toys | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Don’t go into the sex dungeon without a  horse’s head

How long do they normally last? - At least a couple of rounds depending on how much time they’re able to have together. Ideally there would be no rush at all, but they don’t always have that luxury.

Do they make sure each person gets an equal amount of orgasms? - It’s certainly something they try for, but John would enjoy casually losing count whenever she'd try to tally them up. And would likely be in the process of trying to get an extra one out of her just on principle. The jerk.

How rough are they in bed? -

Softer  than a butterfly on the back of a bunny | 2 | 3 | 4 | The bed’s shaking  and squeaking every time | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | Their dirty talk is so  vulgar it’d make Dwayne Johnson blush. Also, the wall’s so weak it could  collapse the next time they do it. - They really have two speeds here. Some night’s John’s softer, caught up in the fact that she’s actually there with him and wants to be, and he can’t help but want to look at her, touch her gently, and take his time. Others, it’s only a matter of waiting for a second of privacy before they’re trying to tear the other’s clothes off.

How much cuddling/snuggling do they do? -

No  touching after sex | 2 | 3 | 4 | A little spooning at night, or on the  couch, but not in public | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | They snuggle and kiss more  often than a teen couple on their fifth date to a pillow factory. - John gives her a little space from time to time, but it’s hard for the two not to touch each other in bed, and he won’t hesitate to wrap himself around her. It’s reassuring to have her that close, and more often than not, he’ll actually start drifting off due to the level of contentment setting in. But most affectionate gestures remain behind closed doors for them, so there’s no heavy doses of PDA going on, no matter how badly they’d want to express it otherwise.

Children:

How many children will they have naturally? - One, which John was nervous about to start, but relaxed as time went on. I’m thinking William (Will? Billy?) for his name, mostly because John didn’t like Theodore (if she can’t honor Ted, she’d honor Bill), both Bruce and Wayne were also shot down, and J-names were right out. (and Hana might’ve shed a tear that night over how many of her action heroes were actually named John)

How many children will they adopt? - N/A

Who gets stuck with the most diapers? - At first it’s Hana due to John’s nerves in handling the baby for any period of time, but he’s able to adjust and let go of that fear once they talk their way through it.

Who is the stricter parent? - They’re even at first, but as John gets more comfortable with the idea of parenthood (and makes more peace with the fear that he’ll be just like his parents), he’s able to be more of a disciplinarian. But it really takes very little for him to crumple like a wet paper bag.

Who stops the kid(s) from doing dangerous stunts after school? - John. He doesn’t have to try too hard with Will, but has a cautious word to share just in case Will thinks of ever being half as much of a daredevil as his mother.

Who remembers to pack the lunch(es)? - John’s got a system down, but Hana’s there to sneak in added things to boost their kiddo’s day, like extra fruit, or a cookie.

Who is the more loved parent? - They’re both evenly loved, but Hana’s laid-back nature definitely leads to more partner in crime bonding opportunities (and good-natured pranks on John).

Who is more likely to attend the PTA meetings? N/A – In a No-Cult situation John would be able to     finesse his way through these in a way Hana never could. And she’s all too glad to skip them entirely.

Who cried the most at graduation? - N/A, but Hana would be swiping at her eyes, and trying to badly hide the fact that she’s sniffling.

Who is more likely to bail the child(ren) out of trouble with the law? - John. John 100%.

Cooking:

Who does the most cooking? - John will try to get her out of the kitchen to bear the brunt of the cooking, but never fully succeeds. 

Who is the most picky in their food choice? - John, if only because he’ll actively try to stick to a balanced diet.

Who does the grocery shopping? - John would probably take the reins here if only to get specifics, but Hana would definitely want to tag along and sneak a few extra things into the cart.

How often do they bake desserts? - It’s not a common thing at all, but the minute Hana mentions missing desserts and cakes, John might make it one of his priorities. Even though he’s terrible at it.

Are they more of a meat lover or a salad eater? - If Hana had her way it’d be mostly meat, but John gently twists her arm into getting a bit more variety into her diet.

Who is more likely to surprise the other(s) with an anniversary dinner? - John, and it’s a struggle at first learning to do without a lot of the items he kept in his kitchen, but he slowly learns, and goes as far as thinking of mood lighting, music, and the like. It’s a brand of romance that Hana would call ridiculous at first glance, but secretly swoons a bit over.

Who is more likely to suggest going out? - Hana would for ease, really. John can stress a little too much about making sure every last part of the meal’s perfect, and no matter how many times she’ll tell him it’s fine, he still tries to go that extra mile.

Who is more likely to burn the house down accidentally while cooking? - It’s actually about 50/50 for these two. 

Chores:

Who cleans the room? - John, mostly because he seems like the type to stress clean and reorder things as a means of centering himself, and poor Hana has no hope of ever being that neat.

Who is really against chores? - Neither’s against chores, but Hana does draw a line with the extent she’ll deep clean things.

Who cleans up after the pets? - These two don’t have pets at first, but the cats that Hana ends up attracting lead to more than a few guests sticking around, and she tends to keep up with them.

Who is more likely to sweep everything under the rug? - This is a rare case of neither, unless Hana’s exhausted and wanting to put it off until tomorrow and John’s back is turned.

Who stresses the most when guests are coming over? - John. Things must be in order and staged well, even if the guest in question is a human tornado.

Who found a dollar between the couch cushions while cleaning? - Hana. She’d probably pretend to do a magic trick with it afterwards, being incredibly obvious about where she’s trying to pull the money from (his pocket, behind his ear), but John would play along, using just enough fake awe to get her to crack and start giggling.

Misc:

Who takes the longer showers/baths? - John. With the shower he used to have, it was the ideal environment to relax and think in.

Who takes the dog out for a walk? - These two don’t have a dog, but there have been times when Hana’s been out (or John), and a few of the cats will just start following them. That totally counts, right?

How often do they decorate the room/house for the holidays? - Hana loves decorating, but John turns it into an event, and he’s so over the top elaborate with it she can’t help but laugh and love it all at once.

What are their goals for the relationship? - To build and keep trust and respect between them. To try harder, and be better.

Who is most likely to sleep till noon? - Neither normally, but John’s odd sleep schedule might leave him sleeping until noon if he was up until 3-4 AM getting work done the night before.

Who plays the most pranks? - It’s actually closer to even than Hana expected it would ever be, but she wins this one.